Overview  

Too often, many events in Australia organized by various ASEAN student communities have been overly focused on their home country participants, mainly due to the lack of funding and also the lack of an organization with the capability to bridge the gap.

Thus, with the acknowledgement of the need and importance of a strong ASEAN identity, especially in view of the fast progress and upcoming importance of the ASEAN region to the world more so in the fast coming future, the ASEAN Agenda was initiated by the Malaysian student community in 2011. The Agenda aims to establish a strong ASEAN student leaders community in Australia and was revised in early 2012, culminating in the birth of the ASEAN-Australia Agenda. This is because the opportunity to study in Australia should be fully leveraged by the ASEAN students to build the network with the Australian student leaders, and vice versa.

Started off being spearheaded by the Malaysian student community in Victoria, the ASEAN-Australia Agenda is now collaboratively owned by the major and leading ASEAN student communities, e.g. Malaysians, Indonesians, Vietnamese, Singaporeans and Thais, both at the Victoria and Australia level.

The 1st ASEAN-Australia Youth Summit which will be held on 28 July is the very first platform which allows our ASEAN and Australian youth leaders to meet and network, ensuring the sustainability of the Agenda!