Inspired by a film by Angga Dwimas Sasongko, “Filosofi Kopi”, two students of International Relations University of Muhammadiyah Malang (UMM), Olivia Afina and Kayla Azzahra use coffee as a media to speak up about peace throughout ASEAN.
They went to several ASEAN countries while distributing coffee wrapped by themselves and put a short message on it. Olivia who is in the 8th semester now said, “I and Kayla bring Indonesian coffee which is not familiar. I want to speak up about diversity in ASEAN through the coffee I package”. Furthermore, she said that drinking coffee is a conventional tradition of society to discuss about something. Unconsciously, this habit generates many new thoughts.
Olivia who is one of Indonesia delegations on ASEAN-ROK Youth Exchange Visit in Cambodia, said, “Coffee is unique because it has its own character”. The message they wrote on the coffee package is aimed to spread peace in ASEAN. Besides, that is the way to introduce Indonesia as a country that represents diversity of ASEAN.
Meanwhile, Indonesia is a part of ASEAN and it is because there are some negative issues about ASEAN that must be considered. Olivia said, “We choose ASEAN because there are some perspectives about it that pessimistic, useless, and no progress”.
They found difficulties in running the mission to five ASEAN countries such as Thailand, Cambodia, Myanmar, Malaysia, and Singapore. Kayla admitted that once she and Olivia were worried about the decision they made. She said, “Olivia is worried. We are afraid that people would think that we try to poison them or something. But, fortunately, the people that are given the coffee by us are happy and give positive feedback”.
Furthermore, Olivia and Kayla brought issues about social culture in their mission. The tremendous diversity of ASEAN is an important topic for each visit. Olivia said, “I lift up social culture issues because I think it represents every country”. These two young girls made a video project which is named as “Kuy Project” to immortalize their journey and to introduce ASEAN through video.
Finally, they hope that what they have done is useful. Olivia and Kayla dream to form an organization that organization that specializes in art workers in ASEAN to preserve the culture of their respective countries because they can create uniqueness of ASEAN culture. (lus)
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