International Relations & Partnerships Office team courtesy visit to see Director General Department of Information and President of Institute of Public Relations Malaysia Dato Haji Abdul Rahman
ASEAN community, as embodied in the document Bali Concord II, is comprised of 3 pillars; Political –Security Community, Economic Community, and Socio – Cultural community. These pillars are closely linked and mutually reinforced to ensure a durable, peaceful, stable, and prosperous Southeast Asian region.
The Political – Security Community is ensuring that the ASEAN community lives in a peaceful, democratic and harmonious environment, while the ASEAN Economic Community integration will transform the region into a single market and production base, a highly competitive region, fully integrated to the global economy.
The third pillars of the ASEAN Community which is the Socio-Cultural Community is people –oriented and socially responsible because at the end of the day, the purpose of the ASEAN Community is to uplift the lives of its people in Southeast Asia. These pillars are expected to focus on people’s education, training, science and technology department, job generation and social protection. If ASEAN is able to provide all these to its people, issues like poverty, hunger, lack of nutrition and etc will be eliminated.
So, on its way in facing the competitive challenges of the ASEAN Community 2015, Mrs. Prita Kemal Gani Director & Founder of LSPR Jakarta, and also Chairman of PERHUMAS (Association of Public Relations in Indonesia) formed a platform for Public Relations Leaders, Educators, Practitioners and other in the ASEAN Region named ASEAN PR Network with the aim to connect, meet, discuss, share current issues and create integrated programs that will develop the quality of PR in Indonesia.
With the objectives to champion connectivity, friendship and mutual understanding among ASEAN member countries, gaining skills and strength from one another PR best practices; ASEAN Public Relations Network will conduct regular activities that benefit the PR society in general especially its members.
The Inauguration of ASEAN Public Relations Network was held in June 2nd 2014 followed by The First Conference of APRN “ Facing a Cascade of Transformation in ASEAN Public Relations Network” on June 3rd 2014. The Conference was divided into 2 themes “ Facing The Challenge Ahead of Public Relations Platform in ASEAN” with PR Leadersfrom ASEAN countries as the speakers and “Public Relations Education and Professional Development; ASEAN Perspective and Standard” with PR Educators from ASEAN countries.
The APRN Team also paid a courtesy visit to The Ministry of Communication & Multimedia in Kuala Lumpur to see Dato’ Haji Ibrahim Abdul Rahman, Director General Department of Information and President of Institute of Public Relations Malaysia to give updates on APRN and its upcoming workshop/projects. We also had a discussion on how we can work together on upcoming APRN events.
