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hm

T

he Singapore public got a taste of 

humanitarian and environmental

issues during the inaugural Asia

Humanitarian Forum (AHF),

which was held in January. The

three-day event showcased

organizations that are tackling these issues, andrallied action and funds for humanity projects.

Jonathan How, director of Café Diplo (www.

cafediplo.org) who was the brains behind

AHF, said “The mission is to bring together

compassionate hearts and available resources

within Asia for global humanitarian and

environmental benet. It will be an annual event

with planned year-round satellite activities for

a wider reach. Plans to take AHF to ASEAN

and other parts of Asia are in the pipeline.”

His organisation is a Singapore-based social

enterprise whose primary mission is to engage

in peacebuilding work in both conict and non-

conict areas.

The free event had lm screenings including

the story of Peace One Day by Jeremy Gilley

(www.peaceoneday.org) where from an idea byone individual, it is now a day – September 21

– which is being marked by three million people

around the world and “Another Way of Seeing

Things” by Daisaku Ikeda, president of Soka

Gakkai International, who has been spreading

the words of peace worldwide. There was also

a book reading of “Little Daughter: A Memoir of

Survival in Burma and the West” written by Zoya

Phan, an ethnic Karen refugee from Burma and

a child of conict, and on the side, there were

a number of exhibitors from the humanitarian

scene.

A taste of  

humanitarian issuesAn inaugural humanitarian forum hopes to bring awareness and compassion to

the public and bring about compassion.

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Humaneity Magazine | March 2010

64

hm Events

There were panel discussions on caring for the

needy with Vivian Claire Liu, founding director of

PhilanthropyWorks, our publisher and president

of The Tiger Foundation (now called Humaneity

Foundation) Mark Philpott, and forum organizer,

How. The last day was left as a networkingsession.

How explained, “A forum about humanity should

be for everyone. The word ‘Asia’ is there [in the

name of the forum] to indicate that the initiative

originated from within that region. Although the

primary target audience is the people of Asia,

the message is a universal one. Many in the

world are apathetic and dispassionate about

humanitarian and environmental needs beyond

their comfort zones. The AHF hopes to ll this

social gap.”

Speaker Liu from PhilanthropyWorks said,

“Kudos to Jonathan [How] for pulling this

off, given that it was a largely one-man show

till the nale. I think the topics discussed are

important and pertinent, and I hope AHF

expands to involve a larger audience as well as

a larger partnership base so that it can be evenOn this page: Top: Cafe Diplo Singspirator Syltra Lee performing

at AHF. Bottom: Jonathan How with Krishna Gopal from Amurt,

an NGO.

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