IDEAS PRESS STATEMENT
For immediate release
21 April 2015
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Look to Sabah for lessons on national unity
In a frank closed-door dialogue that IDEAS held on Saturday, 18 April 2015 in Kota Kinabalu, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department responsible for national unity YB Tan Sri Joseph Kurup shared how Peninsular Malaysians could look to Sabah for lessons on national unity.
During the dialogue session, Tan Sri Joseph stressed how Sabahans are able to live in peace despite coming from multiple ethnic and religious backgrounds. In the closed-door discussion, various issues that affect social cohesion were touched, including the need for infrastructural development, the problem of illegal immigrants, and regional differences between East and West Malaysia.
The meeting was part of the IDEAS National Unity Youth Fellowship programme, which is a nine-month intensive programme with the objective of raising a generation of young Malaysian leaders who share a common vision to improve the state of interethnic and interreligious relations in the country. During the programme, IDEAS brings the 21 Youth Fellows to different all the states in Malaysia to meet with local community leaders and visit national unity initiatives at grassroot level. The will culminate with a National Unity Conference to be held on Malaysia Day, 16 September 2015.
The IDEAS National Unity Youth Fellowship programme is run by IDEAS together with the Department of National Unity and Integration at the Prime Minister’s Department, Institut Integriti Malaysia and Negara-ku.
About the IDEAS National Unity Youth Fellowship
The ultimate objective of this initiative is to develop and support a group of youth leaders so that they can become advocates of the Rukun Negara that says “mendukung cita cita hendak menjamin satu cara hidup liberal terhadap tradisi-tradisi kebudayaannya yang kaya dan berbagai corak.”. The current 21 Youth Fellows were selected via a competitive process. The programme runs from February to September 2015, during which the Youth Fellows go through a series of capacity building workshops to build their skills to promote unity and “turun padang sessions” to meet with local communities in different states.
About IDEAS
IDEAS is Malaysia’s first think-tank dedicated to promoting market-based solutions to public policy challenges. We are an independent not-for-profit organisation. As a cross-partisan think tank, we work across the political spectrum. Our purpose is to advance market-based principles, and we are not bound by party politics, race or religion. Our mission is to improve the level of understanding and acceptance of public policies based on the principles of rule of law, limited government, free markets and free individuals. For more information, please visit http://ideas.org.my/
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