August 1, 2022—On 1st August, middle and high school students from Changwon City visited the AFoCO Secretariat to learn about international relations and diplomacy. The visit was part of the 2022 Changwon Youth Diplomacy Summer Camp organized by Changwon City, which saw the students embark on visits to international organizations and diplomatic missions. The AFoCO secretariat warmly welcomed students and officials from Changwon City and introduced AFoCO through a video introduction and the AFoCOxPengsoo film. After that, the Vice Executive Director, Mr. Jin Sunpil, led a Q&A session on the background of the establishment of AFoCO as well as the programs and projects initiated by the organization.
“We must protect the forests for our children’s children, yet to be born. We must protect the forests for a healthy ecosystem—the birds, animals, fish, and trees. The future of the forest depends on our younger generation. “
Ricardo Calderon, the Executive Director of AFoCO
Our Fellowship Officials work together with the students in small groups to learn about forestry in certain member countries. After gaining some background knowledge on current issues in forestry, group discussions were carried out on three topics. The first topic touched on the forest sectors of Fellowship Officials’ home countries—Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia, Mongolia, Myanmar, and Kazakhstan were introduced and explained through the remarks of the Executive Director of AFoCO. The second topic was about what students think the future issues in the forestry sector would be. Lastly, there was a discussion about the role of international organizations like AFoCO in addressing these issues.
Through the group activities, the thoughts and ideas of students were consolidated, and it was concluded that the students expect forest fires, desertification, floods, climate change, droughts, biodiversity, refugees, and forest destruction to emerge as significant issues in forestry in the years to come. The students from Changwon City had the opportunity to acquire knowledge on the involvement of international organizations in the forestry sector through the workshop.
Submitted by Yujeong Jeong, Assistant Program Officer
