On Friday, 8th October 2021, the ASEAN Studies Center held an Ambassadorial Lecture on ASEAN-Chile Outlook: Current Initiatives and Way Forward. The lecture takes place online by streaming on ASEAN Studies Center UGM Youtube channel. The lecture session was delivered by H.E. Amb. Gustavo Ayares, the Ambassador of Chile to ASEAN and Indonesia, accompanied by Dr. Dafri Agussalim M.A as the moderator.
The lecture highlighted several issues in the areas of Chile-ASEAN relations. H.E. Amb. Gustavo Ayares started his presentation by explaining Chile’s general scope and policy and underlined the possibilities for future Chile-ASEAN. It is discussed how Chile is growing as an open and connected business environment country. Moreover, the discussion has also highlighted how Chile has become the 1st Latin country to become the partner of ASEAN. Ambassador also mentioned that Chile continues to collaborate with ASEAN to fulfill the four pillars: social, economic, political, and identifying areas to work in good governance through the transparency experiences in Chile. H.E. Amb. Gustavo Ayares also highlighted current projects and opportunities to strengthen the relations between Chile and ASEAN.
The lecture was followed by a Questions and Answers session by the participants. The talk was lively as participants were eager to raise questions on compelling topics regarding Chile-ASEAN relations. Among them were questions on the future initiatives and development to be exchanged between Chile-ASEAN.
In closing, the ASEAN-Chile Outlook Ambassadorial Lecture, H.E. Amb. Gustavo Ayres concluded that ASEAN-Chile relations need to be strengthened in the future. Ambassador also hoped that more ASEAN citizens could experience travel to Chile since it may increase their bounds. The ambassadorial lecture was then followed by an exchange of tokens of appreciation from the ASEAN Studies Center UGM and Chile.
Report by Citta Azarine Azhar (Media Intern at ASEAN Studies Center Universitas Gadjah Mada)
“Standing on the Edge of a Thorn” is an intimate portrait of a family in rural Indonesia grappling with poverty, mental illness, and participation in the sex trade. The movie has succeeded in portraying how gender violence issues happened. During the discussion, Dr. Robert Lemelson, Ph. D has highlighted that this movie has brought up the issue of gender violence, which was previously considered a taboo subject to be discussed by the public. Even though the problem is happening a lot and affects the psychology of other family members, it is still considered taboo to bring up this issue. Ninik Supartini, M. Si. has also stated her efforts to approach people to recognize gender violence. According to her, gender violence is a structural issue and requires a prolonged approach to resolve it. Indiana Puspa Dewi, S.S., MA, a Ph.D., has also stated the importance of maximizing the village’s cultural background and situation to handle cases of gender violence in the community. The discussion also became more interesting with the Q&A session with participants of this movie screening.