My Encounters, My Life: Professional Fellows Congress Day 1 & Courtesy Call to Ambassador Ashok Mirpuri

28 May 2019

Rise and shine to the first day of the Professional Fellows Congress.

Recharged and Energised for the Congress

The Professional Fellows Congress was held at the Capital Hilton hotel, a five minutes walk from our Madison Hotel.

Team Vietnam

The Capital Hilton

The stage is ready

Words can't describe how thrilled and excited it was to finally meet the entire Singapore team of Professional Fellows. The moment we got together, all of us just started to drop our standard English for Singlish. Being acquainted made us feel like we were home!

Singaporean Fellows with Ami Chheda (India)

Ami was sharp to spot me (her facebook friend) amongst the crowd of Professional Fellows. Not losing out to the game, I made a wild guess that she is a Gujarati, and I got it spot on. Thanks to her invitation, I would join the World Learning Professional Fellows and others in a great gathering over dinner the next day.

We all finally met one another. Majulah Singapura!

Address by Libby Rosenbaum, Chief Executive Officer, American Council of Young Political Leaders (ACYPL) which organised the Congress, on what to expect during the 3-day Congress

Address by Sonia Urbom, Chief, Professional Fellows Division, Office of Citizens Exchanges, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, US Department of State

A welcome video by the US Department of State was screened, featuring:

Ivanka Trump, Advisor to the President

Mike Pompeo, US Secretary of State

The Professional Fellows Congress marks the culmination of the Professional Fellows Program and provides a forum for Fellows to share experiences, insights, and ideas, and explore ways to incorporate our learning and expertise into concrete and innovative activities upon returning home.

Welcome Remarks by Assistant Secretary Marie Royce, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, US Department of State. She is also an alumnus of ACYPL.

A total of 278 Professional Fellows from 60 countries participated in fellowships in 37 American states, including the District of Columbia.

Assistant Secretary Royce shared in her speech that youths present fresh eyes to old problems, and that youths do not carry the burden of the past. The Professional Fellows Program seeks to make the world a more secure, more prosperous place. She shared that after the program, we would be joining about 1 million others as a US State Department alumni.

Two Alumni Impact Awardees delivered their presentations. They were former Professional Fellows who had returned to their countries and made professional achievements.

Presentation by Claudia Baez (Columbia), Co-founder, Cuestion Publica, an investigative media outlet

Claudia was a Professional Fellow in 2018, and was attached to Electionland, a coalition of newsrooms in US covering issues preventing voters from casting their ballots during the 2018 elections. She drew from her fellowship experience and replicated it to Columbia's election of 2018.

In Columbia, 58% of the media outlets were controlled by 4 conglomerates.

Cuestion Publica exposed the assets of the candidates running for the Colombian Congressional elections

Quan Nguyen (Vietnam), Founder, Coffee Warriors presented on the specialty coffee movement and how Coffee Warriors was driving sustainability development, improve coffee production chain of farmers and conducting coffee exchange programmes to empower farmers.

8% of Vietnamese coffee is exported to the US, although Vietnam is the second largest coffee exporter in the world.

During coffee break, ACYPL YSEALI Professional Fellows gathered to rehearse for our group presentation. The group presentation was meant for each group of Professional Fellows to introduce the team.

Group Presentation by World Learning Professional Fellows (Pakistan, India, Nepal)

Group Presentation by University of Oklahoma Professional Fellows (PINK - Pakistan, India, Nepal, Kazakhstan)

Group Presentation by WorldChicago Professional Fellows (Macedonia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia)

Group Presentation by WSOS Community Action Commission Professional Fellows (Slovakia, Albania, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria)

"Build longer tables, not taller walls"

Group Presentation by American Councils for International Education (ACIE) Professional Fellows (Eurasia)

Group Presentation by AUCD Professional Fellows (East Africa - Tanzania, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda)

Group Presentation by Institute of Training and Development Professional Fellows (Morocco, North West Africa)

Group Presentation by Michigan State University Professional Fellows (East Africa)

"Make Agriculture more equitable"

Group Presentation by East-West Center Professional Fellows (Pacific Islands - Samoa, Solomon Island, Vanuatu, Micronesia, Papua New Guinea, Fiji)

Group Presentation by University of Montana Professional Fellows (Southeast Asia)

Group Presentation by American Council of Young Political Leaders (ACYPL) Professional Fellows (Southeast Asia)

Group Presentation by International City/County Management Association (ICMA) Professional Fellows (Southeast Asia)

Group Presentation by ACIE - YSEALI Professional Fellows (Southeast Asia)

Group Presentation by NCUSCR Professional Fellows (China, Taiwan, Hong Kong)

Group Presentation by Legacy International Professional Fellows (Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, and Tunisia)

Professional Fellows from Brunei, China, Kenya, Malaysia, Singapore!

Glad to meet Becky (China) who, like me, graduated from the National University of Singapore.

Professional Fellows from Brunei, China, Taiwan, Singapore :)

After lunch, we went into the thematic breakout discussion sessions. I headed to the Small Business Entrepreneurship and Economic Empowerment session.

Sharing by Josefina Urzaiz, founder of CIELO Foundation

Cielo provides economic opportunity to many of the villagers by having them weave hammocks, and selling the hammocks internationally.

With Reeve, who's also a Young NTUC Career Coach

After the break, I headed to the Social Entrepreneurship session.

Sharing by Josh Mandell, Chief Operating Officer, Halcyon House

Halcyon House is based in Washington DC and incubates social enterprises. Washington DC is ripe for social enterprises as it has a highly educated and skilled workforce; a civically engaged population; supportive regulatory environment and its culture and lifestyle.

Aikeo (Laos) asking a question

After the Congress, the Singaporean Professional Fellows headed to the Embassy of Singapore to make a courtesy call on our Ambassador Ashok Mirpuri.

It all began with a conversation on the YSEALI Professional Fellows Program with Mr Zainul Abidin Rasheed, Non-Resident Ambassador to Kuwait, former Grassroots Adviser to Eunos & former Senior Minister of State for Foreign Affairs after a community event. Mr Zainul suggested that the Singaporean team should meet up with the Ambassador during our stay in Washington DC.

Our email request for a meeting was promptly responded by the Ambassador before our departure from Singapore. We were glad that the Embassy accommodated our request to meet after the official working hours.

Honoured to meet Ambassador Ashok Mirpuri, Singapore’s Ambassador to the United States of America and Mrs Mirpuri at our Embassy.

Out of over 30 embassies of Singapore, the one at Washington DC is the largest. We had a chat about our 6 weeks of Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative Professional Fellows Program experience in our 5 different placement cities, and what we set out to achieve.

We also talked about the “Crazy Rich Asian” film and Trump-Kim Summit which had generated interest of Singapore and Asia within America. And how, although Singapore is not perfect, we have so much to count our blessings for. I can now totally appreciate what it means when we say we have a clean and green, secure and safe environment.

Like what former DPM Tharman said while he was in US in 2015, "We have disadvantaged persons, ... but we don't have disadvantaged neighbourhoods in Singapore...”