Skip to main content
Australian crest on left and ASEAN logo on right

Australia-ASEAN Council grant recipients, 2016-17

Project title Recipient Project description AAC Grant (GST inc. where applicable) Grant funding location
Trialing Student-Centred Pedagogies in Malaysian Schools Charles Darwin University This project will trial the use of the Question Formulation Technique, a structured approach to teaching students how to formulate and refine their own questions supplemented by various hands-on techniques supported by digital technology. Developing questioning skills is important for effective inquiry-based learning and fundamental to the critical thinking and problem-solving skills recognised by educators advocating focused development of "21st century skills". This is also the case with digital literacy skills, and when combined, these skills are pivotal in student-centred pedagogies. In Malaysian schools, however, student-initiated questioning is not encouraged. The project will involve participation of Malaysian preservice teachers while also surveying students after classroom trials about their experience. The project aims to determine the suitability of this technique in Malaysian schools in a policy environment in which professional development of teaching practices is prominent. This project is timely given that Malaysian student performance is declining as suggested by the 2012 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) survey results which shows Malaysia as placed in the bottom third, ranking 52 out of 65 countries.  $13,420.00 Malaysia, Australia
Darwin Festival — Filipino Program Darwin Festival Inc To celebrate 70 years of diplomatic relations between the Philippines and Australia, the 2016 Darwin Festival will present a program of contemporary Filipino artists in collaboration with Northern Territory-based artists. The program features Sipat Lawin, which is the Phillipines premier contemporary theatre company, performing Gobyerno – a participatory performance which invites audiences to form and perform their ideal government. A second project features Joey Ayala, renowned Filipino singer, songwriter and former chair of the music committee of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts, performing with Northern Territory-based singer songwriters Serena Pech and Jeffrey 'Yellow' Simon, lead singer of internationally acclaimed B2M (Bathurst to Melville) from the Tiwi Islands.  $43,867.10 Australia
Natural disasters and cultural heritage in the Philippines: recovery and reconstruction The University of Melbourne

In 2017 the 'Natural disasters & cultural heritage in the Philippines: recovery and reconstruction' project will draw upon the expertise of the National Museum of the Philippines together with the Grimwade Centre for Cultural Materials Conservation under the auspices of APTCCARN (Asia Pacific Tropical Climate Conservation Art Research Network) to hold its 5th Meeting and collaborative exchanges in Bohol in the Philippines. These events aim to expand people to people linkages among a diverse range of skills, capabilities and experiences in cultural heritage recovery and disaster management, and to include community knowledge and experiences from the recent natural disasters and reconstruction projects in the Philippines.

The increased risk of natural disasters in the Philippines and across Southeast Asia is having devastating effects on cultural collections. The 2013 earthquake on the island of Bohol and Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, for example has highlighted the current realities of extreme weather events and the necessity for community based models for the recovery and reconstruction of Church cultural heritage. By bringing together a range of experiences and shared capabilities, this project will provide a platform for genuine collaboration for a regional practice of disaster recovery management and reconstruction of cultural materials.

$33,000.00 Australia, Philippines
Inaugural Australia-Vietnam Young Leadership Dialogue Australia-Vietnam Leadership Dialogue Limited

The Australia-Vietnam Young Leadership Dialogue (AVYLD) is an independent non-profit initiative that nurture relationships, promote engagement and incubate collaboration between Australian and Vietnamese young leaders. Through people to people links, we believe the bilateral relationship between Australia and Vietnam can be strengthened to contribute to the development of each respective nation.

The first dialogue will be held in Sydney in May 2017, involving up to 30 delegates from Australia and Vietnam along with various speakers and partners from diverse sectors including business, education, policy, non-for-profit and the arts.

$36,465.00 Australia, Vietnam
Making Connections: Indigenous Australian Writers in Indonesia & Beyond Asia Pacific Writers and Translators Inc. Asia Pacific Writers and Translators will take three Indigenous Australian writers as a panel to the ASEAN literary festival in Jakarta and if possible onto Makassar Writers Festival, a port city on eastern Indonesia's Sulawesi Island, as a way to introduce the lesser heard Australian narratives to those in the ASEAN region. Reciprocally three indigenous and minority writers from Indonesia and other countries in South-East Asia will be APWT's guests during our annual event in Brisbane in 2018. $17,050.00 Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam
Women in Transport Leadership (WiTL): creating knowledge The University of Queensland This project aims to create the Women in Transportation Leadership Network (WiTL), a platform to produce knowledge, foster innovation and increase female-to-female collaborative linkages in Australia and ASEAN. The knowledge network aims to strengthen female capabilities, particularly in research and practice, and increase leadership opportunities to address the diverse transport challenges, particularly issues related to gender and transport, which is key to achieving a more holistic and inclusive global community. $41,432.60 Vietnam, Australia, Philippines
Capacity Building for Museums in Myanmar: Collections, Conservation and Management AusHeritage AusHeritage, Australia's network of heritage professionals, is delivering a 5-day museum workshop in Myanmar, with the support of the Myanmar Ministry of Religious and Cultural Affairs. The project will assist in capacity building through training local staff in museum procedures, collection management and visitor services. Furthering Myanmar connections first established during an AusHeritage workshop in Bagan, Myanmar in 2004, the AusHeritage team of Charlotte Galloway (Australian National University), Vinod Daniel (AusHeritage and IndHeritage) and Alex Marsden (Museums Australia) bring to this project extensive museum experience and familiarity with the challenges of working in developing countries. Dr Galloway has recently been working with Myanmar museum collections and is coordinating this workshop to share Australian museum expertise with Myanmar counterparts. With museums playing an increasingly significant role as local and foreign tourist numbers grow in Myanmar skills in maintaining collections, creating displays and providing visitor information are identified as areas of need in this sector. Dialogues will be established to link our Myanmar colleagues with AusHeritage members to support local staff into the future as Myanmar's museum sector expands.  $14,910.00 Myanmar
Establishment and Promotion of HPC for Radio Astronomy in Thailand University of Western Australia The project is building collaborations, student exchange and knowledge transfer between the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) and the National Astronomical Institute of Thailand (NARIT) in the areas of High Performance Computing (HPC), applied to Radio Astronomical data. It will support the build-up of Thailand's expertise in Radio Astronomical research in view of the planned Thai Radio Astronomical facilities, and also potential future Thai involvement in the Square Kilometre Array (SKA). By inviting students to study for a prolonged time in Australia and by providing training and joint workshops in Thailand we will promote strong personal contacts and collaborations, which are always the best seeds for sustained relations and bilateral collaborations. The planned HPC workshops are also open to attendees from the whole SE Asian region (particularly Malaysia and Philippines). NARIT has been appointed by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) to be a Regional Office of Astronomy for Development (ROAD) in Southeast Asia, the so-called IAU SEA-ROAD. These national and international meetings will enhance the profile of the NARIT/Thai leadership in this domain and demonstrate the Australian expertise in the South-East Asia region. $61,504.30 Australia, Thailand
OzAsia Festival's ASEAN Program OzAsia Festival OzAsia Festival will celebrate its 10-year anniversary by collaborating with Southeast Asian and Australian artists to present a significant offering of arts and culture from Southeast Asia as part of annual program. Several projects have been directly supported by the Australia-ASEAN Council including the Australian premiere season of Cambodia's acclaimed Phare Circus who will present a world premiere new presentation for OzAsia Festival. Other projects supported through this partnership include the World premiere season of Beastly by Tutti Arts from Adelaide and Stepping Stone from Penang who have collaborated to create new performance art installations by artists with disability and finally Roundabout, a contemporary arts exhibition by three leading artists from The Philippines, Mark Valenzuela, Riel Hilario and Wawi Navarroza. $33,000.00 Cambodia, Malaysia, Philippines, Australia
Disaster Dead Body Management for ASEAN Police First Responders Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine The Asia Pacific region is the world's most disaster prone with significant weather events such as floods, landslides, typhoons and tsunamis that can cause major loss of life. Other mass casualty events in this region include plane crashes, ferries sinking and terrorist attacks. In the aftermath of these events there is a need to undertake the orderly recovery, storage and management of the dead in a way that supports identification and repatriation to families for burial rites. Police are often the first responders to the scenes of mass disasters and are responsible for site command and control. This project will develop and trial training in dead body management for ASEAN police first responders through ASEAN-wide partnerships between forensic medical experts and police. This three year project led by Australia's Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine will involve ASEANAPOL, the Asia Pacific Medico-Legal Agencies (APMLA) network of forensic medical institutions, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), and the National Institutes of Forensic Medicine in Malaysia and Vietnam. $70,796.00 Australia, Malaysia, Vietnam
Australian Thai Youth Ambassadors Program Miss Angelica Casado The Australian Thai Youth Ambassadors Program is a four week program for Australian university students to volunteer their skills in Northeast Thailand and gain a deeper understanding of the Thai culture, traditions and its people. The core focus of the program is teaching underprivileged students English through a range of English activities including phonetics, pronunciation and fun games. The program also teaches Thai students about Australian flora and fauna as well as singing songs. The program also enables participants to develop their leadership and networking skills through a range of events including diplomatic visits to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Australian Embassy. $6,000.00 Australia, Thailand
ASEAN academic partnerships for small business and ICT knowledge transfer  Victoria University The project initiates collaboration between Victoria University in Melbourne, Mahidol University International College (Thailand), De La Salle University (Philippines) and Universiti Malaysia Terengganu (Malaysia) in the area of small business use of ICT. People-to-people linkages will be established across these universities enabling a forum to promote knowledge transfers on the value of modern ICT for small operators, and foster ongoing collaboration between participating universities to include ICT and small business elements into academic research, training programs and doctoral supervision. The project will assist with increasing the capacity of ASEAN academics to further understand the importance of ICT to the small business sector. Knowledge transfer will occur through a series of workshops held by each of the four universities involved in the project. It is anticipated that participating ASEAN universities will be equipped with the knowledge and skills to deliver ICT courses to small businesses in their local regions. $77,123.00 Australia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand
AAC Media Fellows 2016-17 University of Sydney

Two senior undergraduate media and communications students from the University of Sydney will travel to Bangkok, Thailand in Jan/Feb 2017 to undertake a four week journalism Internship at The Bangkok Post. The interns will be expected to work as professional journalists, initiating, researching and writing stories either for press publication by their host organisation. These can cover economic affairs, international events, sport, culture, fashion, health, and human interest stories, with an emphasis wherever possible on bilateral relations. Interns may be able to promote Australian and bilateral relationship to an extremely wide audience, via articles and stories they publish in their media organisation.

During this time the students will present the image of Australia as a country with educated intelligent and hard-working students from excellent tertiary institutions. This opportunity will ensure that future Australian journalists have a much more in depth understanding of Thailand including its culture, politics and history.

$12,500.00 Australia, Thailand
Australia-ASEAN Youth Summit 2016 ASEAN Youth Organisation (AYO)

The summit is the largest annual ASEAN Youth gathering in Victoria that brings students and leaders from government and private sector to one location. The occasion serves to explore not only the complex dynamics within the ASEAN region from politics to economic development, but also the issues that are affecting the ASEAN youth such as job opportunities back home in the ASEAN region.

The theme of the Australia-ASEAN Youth Summit 2016 will be "BECOME THE CHANGE". The summit will explore the above themes through focused discussions on 6 topics — employment, tertiary education, wages, working conditions, migration and entrepreneurship to empower the youth to become the change in this decade that ASEAN needs the most.

The summit is committed to: 1. Serve as a platform for the youth to freely exchange information and ideas on matters of interest within and outside ASEAN; 2. Advocate for the voice of the ASEAN youth to be heard on a state-wide scale; 3. Cooperate and collaborate with governments, NGOs, private organizations and the representatives from ASEAN (Consul generals, etc) on matters that would realize the ideals of the ASEAN Youth Organization; 4. Empower the youth by providing a practical platform to improve their knowledge, skills, attitudes, and behaviours through instilling forward-looking ideas that would result in a positive change in their respective communities; and 5. Empower the youth by providing a practical platform to engage in intellectual discourse between the youth and change-makers as well as among youth.

$5,500.00 Australia, Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam
Tour of Faith Fashion Fusion: Muslim women's style in Australia Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences To tour an exhibition to Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur showcashing modest fashion by Australian Muslim designers and the diversity of Australian Muslim women's experiences, achievements and identity. $33,000.00 Indonesia, Malaysia
Back to top