The Malaysian Youth Delegation hosted the annual Retreat at EPIC Collective over the weekend of the 28th and 29th April 2018. New members were asked to reflect the activities they took part in, what they learned along the way, and what they took away from the experience. Here’s what our new members had to say:

By: Ghali Foster

The day I received the email to join this retreat I was pretty excited. The only thing is I had a fear that I won’t get along with everybody as I don’t have an environmental science background. As the day went on throughout the retreat, the people that I have met and connected with are amazing people. The people from the retreat are a diverse group of fun people from multiple backgrounds with one thing in mind, which is to learn more about climate change policies.

Other than making friends, I have a lot of new information for my brain to process such as many new terms and I have a better idea of what MYD is doing and where our country is at in terms of climate change. The history of climate change is something we should all take note of. It’s a lot of information on how policies are formed that leads up to the current policy which is the Paris Agreement. From the retreat, I also have a better picture of how leaders agree on a policy. It will only work as long as they keep their promise in an effort to undo and reduce the damage. Climate change is definitely driven by human factors. The best part of the retreat was the sharing session from past MYD members who went to the previous COPs. It was insightful as it takes a lot of dedication and effort; days of preparation leading up to the conference.

The things I learned from the retreat is only the surface. I’m prepared to dive deeper into it in the coming months.