There is an air of excitement in ASEAN University Sports Council (AUSC) Permanent Secretariat Office in Putrajaya, Malaysia on 5 and 6 January 2022 as the AUSC Youth Sports Leadership Programme (YSL) 2022 commence, and all the AUSC family members and Secretariat are honoured to be hosting this regional programme for the first time virtually.

This programme was participated by university student-athletes from ASEAN region who nominated by their National University Sports Federation (NUSF) respectively and 4 selected mentors from different background and experienced. The YSL 2022 was initiated by the AUSC Secretariat after the AUSC Regional Strategy 2021 – 2027 launched in January 2021.

It was a year of ground-breaking commitments with the adoption of the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) which include a transformative, comprehensive, and universal stand-alone goal on achieving the AUSC Strategic Planning. And this programme is part of the role for AUSC to achieve the 2030 Agenda through commitment, hard work and continuous support from ASEAN youths. The objective of this programme is to promote sportsmanship and leadership skill through sports and education activities in producing quality of the student-athletes among university student-athletes in ASEAN region.  

The participants have been given their specific topic namely competency requirement for student-athletes as future leaders, role of sports in international relations, digitalization and sports technology in enhancing performance, and skill acquisition through sports volunteerism, that have been discussed 2 weeks before the programme started and facilitated by their mentor in the groups’ discussion. The groups presented their outcome and were judged by Donna Spethman (FISU Oceania Secretary General), Laura Yan (AUSF General Coordinator), Dr. Alongkone Phengsavanh (AUSC International Medical and Anti-Doping Committee Chairman) and Phouvong Phimmakong (LUSF Deputy Secretary General) as invited judges.

Prof. Dato’ Dr. Abdullah Mohamad Said (AUSC Former President), Paulo Ferreira (FISU Director General), Donna Spethman (FISU Oceania Secretary General) and Dr. Prakit Prakit Hongsaenyatham (Dean, Faculty of Sports Science and Technology, Bangkokthonburi University, Thailand) were the invited speakers for this programme.

The opening ceremony was officiated by the AUSC President, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Mohd Rushdan Mohd Jailani and closed by Dr. Pekan Ramli, Deputy Under Secretary (Sports Section), Planning & Policy Research Division, Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia.

AUSC hope that this programme will be grown in strength, numbers of participation and quality, contributing to the development of the future leaders through sports the region and unearthing many of the leaders of tomorrow in upcoming years.

At the end of the programme, “Best Group Awards” and “Best Presenter Awards” were announced by the AUSC Secretary General, Roestam Effendi Sijar.

(Source: AUSC Secretariat)