The ASEAN Foundation is partnering with the Maybank Foundation to implement the eMpowering Youths Across ASEAN (eYAA), a regional initiative that aims to galvanise youth volunteerism to lead meaningful change in the region.
Launched in 2018, the programme engages talented youth aged 19 to 35 across the ten ASEAN Member States to develop and implement community projects that will deliver tangible long-term social and economic impact in selected community sites.
Prior to the undertaking of the community projects, selected youth volunteers will be divided into groups based on the topics that they chose (Arts and Culture, Community Building/Empowerment, Education, Environmental Diversity), and undergo a regional orientation and capacity-building workshop to receive trainings on various topics from how to develop project plans that cover a broad range of developmental issues to how to roll out impactful awareness-raising campaign. Following simultaneous mobilisation to ten community areas, volunteers will implement their community projects in partnership with local civil society organisations for two weeks.
Five years since it was launched, eYAA has empowered 400 ASEAN youth volunteers to create meaningful impacts on communities across the region, collaborating with 31 CSOs through initiatives in arts and culture, community building/empowerment, education, and environmental diversity. Initially launched as a pilot in three ASEAN countries, the programme has since expanded to include Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. In 2025, with the rollout of eYAA: Cohort 5, the programme will further grow to encompass Viet Nam. Since its inception in 2018, it has positively impacted over 60,000 beneficiaries across the ASEAN region.
eYAA is grounded within the development paradigm and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community Blueprints, and the ASEAN Work Plan on Youth in the formulation of its strategies and activities. Through eYAA, the ASEAN Foundation and Maybank Foundation are committed to provide ASEAN youth with a platform to learn, contribute, and advocate solutions to social and economic issues through volunteerism and by being change-makers.
“We believe that the youth of today are the future of tomorrow. Hence our focus is on sustainable programmes that provide long-term community and economic benefits which will contribute to the progress of communities where we operate, especially ASEAN. It is indeed challenging – however, our intention is to provide everyone with a fair chance to thrive in their respective fields in hopes of them giving back to society.”
Nora Manaf
Group Chief Human Capital Officer at Maybank Group
