By Emylia Natasha Binti Saharuddin
The Kita Boleh programme was held on the twelfth to the fourteenth of May 2017. It gathered nearly 1000 youths (ranges 19 years old -35 years old) from different backgrounds and from different universities, organizations and occupations. However, the chosen youths all have one thing in common – They were either born or grew up in Perak. UiTM Seri Iskandar Perak was the venue for the youths to gather in order to make this programme success.
I was honoured to be invited by one of the active Perak secretariat to join this programme. The main guests of this event were state minister (Dato Dr Zambri), YB Dato’ Nolee, YB Khairul Azwan and Mr Kishva. I was given a chance to voice out my opinion on suggestions to improve Perak in order to be a better state for the youths to be productive in. I was the second chosen from ten other youths to be selected to voice out in front of thousands of people. With a humble heart, I stood without hesitation as the founder of the QIUP Outdoor club to share my thoughts to the main guests, corporate people and youth that attended the event. I had strongly suggested to the state minister and other VIPs about the sports facilities in Perak especially outdoor facilities. Perak is a state surrounded with beautiful hills and challenging mountains. However, the lack of facilities inhibits youths to be actively to hike or explore Perak state. Youths tend to spend more money to visit and explore other states due to the weakness of the facilities in Perak. To sum up, I stressed to ministers that preservation of nature still can be done even after the facilities have been implemented. For example, for a flying fox activity trees or hills do not need to be damaged in any way. Just add strings on the tree and the activities can be executed effectively among the youths. Besides that, I stressed to the ministers and youths that most of the outdoor athletes are among the most loyal nature lover as they are aware of the beauty of the nature. The rubbish and trash that normally can be seen in the river or in hills are mostly thrown by people who have no interest about outdoor activities and not real hikers or outdoors people.
In addition, the implementation of the outdoor facilities and sports facilities are effective in helping with negative social issues among the youths. Youths will explore and learn about the positive activities which they can spend their time on in a proper way instead of wasting money on alcohol, drugs and any other illegal activities. I was surprised to receive loud applauses and cheers from the floor after I had done voicing out my thoughts. Even though, I was the second chosen to voice out my thoughts, the state ministers and other ministers commented about my suggestion first before everyone else. I was also approached personally by the YB Dato Nolee to work under her at Perak Tourism and she handed her name card to me. YB Khairul Azwan felt very happy to receive this kind of opinion from a lady instead of a guy. He stressed at the end of his remarks saying that “she is eligible to become the next state minister” and this was followed by the loudest cheers from the floor.
This programme was a good approach to gather youths from different backgrounds and we shared many ideas to improvise Perak state. We inspired each other during this programme and this programme made us aspire to improve Perak state. Hence, I would like to emphasise especially to the leaders out there not to always depend on others and to be firm in coping with any unexpected event so that the injections of the positive energies can be spread out to everyone through inspiration and aspiration.
