Written by: Eunice Ow
Edited by: Felicia Chua
What does it mean to be a global citizen? Many would instantly think of exposure to global affairs and current events. The understanding of the current global agora makes it quintessential for us to step outside of our comfort zone, out of the Singapore landscape, to recognise that there are vast differences in the way other countries are governed. Through building our knowledge of other countries, we will then be able to better understand what is truly going on in the world.
On the 19th of February, NTU-USP Club’s AGA subcommittee held its inaugural dialogue session with the Ukrainian ambassador, Mr Dmytro Senik, as part of its Eminent Speaker Series. The session aimed to provide scholars with the chance to understand policies and governance through a foreign lens, and the informative session was filled with current affairs pertaining to Ukraine. Participants were given the opportunity to ask Mr Senik a myriad of questions about his home country; ranging from politics, to demography, and even to the culture and food!
Mr Senik first started the session by introducing Ukraine to us, with the largest city and its capital of Kiev. We learnt that Ukraine interestingly has a number of official languages including Ukrainian, Belarusian, Crimean, Hebrew, Russian, Hungarian and more. Mr Senik’s presentation also featured some of the outstanding inventions and innovations made by Ukrainians, for example, Jan Kousm, the founder of today’s leading communication application, WhatsApp. He highlighted that Ukrainian’s education system had favoured the growth of these young engineers and entrepreneurs — a system he used to compare with how well NTU was doing!
During the Q&A section, one student asked about the culture of Ukrainian youths and how empathetic youths are to current affairs. With that, Mr Senik answered favourably, citing that recent political turmoil in the country had fostered a sense of civic consciousness. He went on to give examples of how the proliferation of the media has made current events very accessible, but also warned us against the possible manipulation of some sources on the media that may propagate the wrong information. Such an insight is highly relevant to Singapore youths as well. Despite youths of our age touting ourselves as the most internet-savvy generation out there, we should still learn to peruse the net and its social media counterparts with discretion.
Other interesting questions concerning food and demographics popped up, like how many Ukrainian youths were there studying in Singapore at the moment. All in all, the interactive sessions with Mr Senik was highly informative and fruitful for us all! Ultimately, we learnt that Ukraine is a bustling hub with a forward-thinking population, one that was resilient and ready to progress itself. We are certainly thankful for this exposure, and hope to be able to attend more eye-opening events like this in the future!
We would like to extend our warmest gratitude to EDB, whose sponsorship, without which, would not have made this enriching night possible for NTU-USPians!
