By Sarah Yusoff
GOMBAK, 26 July 2022: Three teams, namely Red Riding Hood, Trailblazers and Virtue, were sent to take part in My Policy Bootcamp to represent International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM), two of which, Red Riding Hood and Trailblazers, received RM3,000 each as a form of prize, as their speakers earned four places in the top 5 Policy Pitch competition.
My Policy Bootcamp 2022 is a 16-week programme organised by the Institute for Research and Development of Policy (IRDP) and the United States Embassy launched on 26 February with the purpose to create a platform for youths to learn more about policymaking and pitching of ideas.
The internship advisor for Political Science Department, Dr. Rabiah Aminudin explained that the bootcamp was aimed to provide young Malaysians with an insight to policymaking, from policy formulation right up to its implementation.
“By getting Malaysian youths to understand how policy process works, they would be able to pitch their policy ideas and get ideas translated into action,” Dr. Rabiah said.
Furthermore, she added that students’ participation in such activities would help them to further strengthen their knowledge as well as skills whilst expanding their network.
She highly encouraged students, particularly those from the Department of Political Science, to participate in such activity as this would serve as a medium for them to apply the knowledge that they had gained from their classrooms to benefit others.
In an interview with IIUMToday, one of the participants, Ahmad Hani, shared his experience of being part of the team from the beginning right until the end of the Bootcamp, where he stated that one of the challenges he faced was time management, given the fact that he is actively involved in societies.
As with Nabil Haziq, he shared that in the 16 weeks, activities such as master class, self learning tools and the mentoring session were conducted every Saturday, and his team had to sacrifice the weekend and work hard to participate in the activities.
“The highlight of my 16-week journey was the first master class, where the Member of Parliament for Permatang Pauh, Nurul Izzah Anwar, was invited to conduct the session and she shared about institutional reform, particularly on parliamentary reformation,” Nabil Haziq shared.
Meanwhile, Muhammad Rasyid said, “Some of the challenges I faced included having a heavy workload and having limited access to Internet data, which could have similarly prevented organisations such as the Women’s Aid organisation (WAO) and Lembaga Penduduk dan Pembangunan Keluarga Malaysia (LPPKN), to act on issues such as period poverty and period awareness.”
He also mentioned that the topic raised at the pitch competition was menstruation equity, which is often considered as an unimportant topic for many people.
“Knowing that we achieved top five in the policy pitch was really amazing,” he added.
Dr. Rabiah further told IIUMToday that she hoped to see more IIUM students taking part in similar programmes in order for them to expand their worldview by meeting people from different backgrounds.
The four Political Science students from the two teams who earned their place as the top 5 Policy Pitch presenters of the MY Policy Bootcamp were:
Team Trailblazers:
1. Nabil Haziq
2. Ahmad Hani
Team Red Riding Hood:
3. Nik Faqihah Auni
4. Muhammad Rasyid Ridha
The programme was participated by more than 100 Malaysian youths coming from diverse backgrounds including university students, lecturers and researchers.***