What Can Millennials Do to Foster It? By Nabilla Hadistia, AEC Trooper

As we know that Indonesia and Australia have a good relationship. Guess what? Indonesia and Australia have had a relationship since colonization era. It is proven by the story between Molly and Bondan. Molly, an Australian woman, supported Indonesians’ struggle for the independence. Therefore, Bondan, an Indonesian nationalist, lived in Australia as a political exile for Indonesia’s independence as well. How romantic they were doing something great for a Nation.

For the future collaboration between Australia and Indonesia, we have to see the opportunities and face the challenges. The Australia Awards Scholarships, AIYA, and The Australia-Indonesia Youth Exchange Program (AIYEP) are some of the communication and interaction platforms, which provide huge opportunities. One of the ways to foster it, I as an undergraduate student in West Java, can get involved with AIYA Jawa Barat. I am pretty sure that we can have a lot of opportunities. We just need to choose and be committed in it.

Moreover, for having the future collaboration, we have to face the challenges as well, especially in economic point of view. The speakers said that we had the economic crisis especially in this Covid-19 pandemic where more budget cuts. However, it cannot break the future collaboration on Australia-Indonesia relationship.

Not far from the topic, we also talked about the culture shock from the speakers’ side, an Australian who visited Indonesia and an Indonesian who went abroad. The culture shock that Indonesian people feel is about smiling. In Indonesia, smiling can be a way to greet someone but in other countries, it is weird to smile to strangers. Moreover, the culture shock that Australian people feel is about asking to take picture with them. Well, nothing is wrong, it depends on where we are. As long as it does not interrupt others, it will be alright.

It was a great discussion. I noticed some words from the speakers. What I noticed from Clarice is when she said, “Keep doing what you’re doing”. It is so meaningful. Moreover, the most favorite words that I like from another speaker, Hikmawan, is when he said, “New things  will be always there in the new environment. Just be patient, and you’ll get the value of it”.

Risa Puspitaningrum – Trooper

Firstly I would like to say thank you very much for having me in a great online seminar yesterday.

It was a good time when we discussed again how Australia-Indonesia relationship was created. Maybe some people only know about some trades between both countries that occurred these days. However, actually these two countries have relied on each other since long time ago even before colonialism happened. These two nations had visited each other before the European settlement existed. Furthermore, the relationship between both countries keep existing until now especially in education since Australia is one of Indonesia’s friendly countries. We can see that the government on both sides agree in student exchange program. It cannot be denied that both countries provide a lot of opportunities like scholarship for people to continue the study.

Achieving scholarship to study in Australia is one of the things that Indonesian millennial generation can do to maintain Australia-Indonesia relationship. We need to be open-minded and join many platforms for example the last webinar that we attended and many else. It can really help and guide us to achieve that chance. We have to have strong-willed in learning, socializing, and getting many experiences inside our country, other country, or even further than that. Don’t close our eyes and start to look around because the world is much bigger than what we know. If we just stay, we will not be able to survive and develop ourselves. One important thing that we need to consider is not to forget the place where we come from, even though we are studying or living abroad, we are still the representatives of the country that had raised us. Keep our faith and belief and also do not let the flow control us until we forget to go home and make our country better.

Once more time, thank you for sharing the knowledge and experiences through this webinar. Hopefully there will be more spaces like this for sharing and connecting more people.