It may take a village to raise a child, but in today’s volatile world, it takes an educated and culturally aware child to build a tolerant and peaceful global village.

While our Nippon Maru experiences have been personally enriching, the SSEAYP significance and spirit are over-shadowed by the ex-participants’ other priorities in life eg family and career commitment as they pass through the various life stages. In order to get ex-PYs to be more involved in propagating SSEAYP’s significance, we attempt to involve their children and nieces/nephews. 

Z-generation is the term coined for our next generation after the X and Y generations. We attempt to help our upcoming Z generation to create a network of pen-pal so that we can build a closer regional community of caring and sharing.

We are collecting data of children related to our PYs.  They can be the children or nieces or nephews or close friends of our PYs. We would then match these data with those collected from other participating SSEAYP nations and send children name of pen-pals they could start writing to.

Alumni board could also organize GIFT boxes or EXCHANGE trip programmes for the Bamboo networkers.

GIFT BOXES
This idea arose during the Discussion sessions of the Intercultural Understanding Group of the 32nd SSEAYP.  Each participating nations can pack some unique items of their country. 
Eg from Singapore, some of the unique items could include :

• Chinese characters cut-out from the Chinese red-packet
• Stamps
• Instant noodles (local flavour eg laksa)
• Malay ketupats
• Indian bindhi / spices
• Local snacks

In March, during the school holidays, we conducted a handicraft workshop for bamboo networkers in Singapore.  We learnt how to fold goldfishes and cut Chinese characters from the recycled Chinese red packet as well as to make the Malay ketupat.  Some of these items can be packed in the GIFT BOX programme.
 
We could have the alumni spearhead the packing of the GIFT BOX with the help of Bamboo networkers and to have the GIFT BOX sent to Alumni for the bamboo networkers.  Alternatively, we could identify one primary school from each nation; perhaps primary school where the bamboo networkers study.  We could then set up a primary school network among SSEAYP nations and have the GIFT BOX exchange programme. 

The GIFT BOX could be displayed on a designated International Understanding day where the Bamboo networkers could gather locally to do quiz and some activities relating to promoting understanding of SSEAYP nations.

EXCHANGE TRIP PROGRAMMES
SIGA conferences could be expanded to include the bamboo networkers and have a separate special junior programme or mini-conference.

The Z generation will no doubt be the leaders of tomorrow and it is critical for all the SSEAYP Alumni to participate enthusiastically and sincerely in this initiative.  Each country should have a Z-generation leader to guide the process in their respective nation.  The role of the Z-generation leader is to collect data of the children, to organize activities for the local Bamboo network and to coordinate with other Alumni for cross border activities for the Z-generation.

We seek the support from all Alumni for this initiative.
Interested EPY who wish to register their child/children please contact Leng Leng (PY90) at 9862 0833 or lengleng@micefamily.org. Registration details required:

• Name of PY
• Year of PY
• Name of PY’s children (including niece and nephew)
• Age/Sex
• Contact numbers
• Contact email
• Preferred country for matching of e-mail communication or pen-pal