Stupidest idea for suicide prevention ever.

The Malaysian police is planning to criminalise suicide by arresting those who attempt suicide. According to their twisted logic, jail is enough of a deterrent and besides, they can be counselled in jail anyway.
STUPIDEST. IDEA. EVER.
Mental health, depression, and suicide are issues that touch me deeply. I have lived with depression and anxiety for about [...]

Racist brainwashing by Biro Tatanegara – GRR

Biro Tatanegara (rough translation: Civics Bureau) is a Government-run agency that organises mandatory “citizenship” workshops for students that have received Government scholarships for tertiary education. Under the guise of “education” and “building a multicultural Malaysian culture”, these workshops are hubs of anti-Chinese/Indian/etc racism and anti-Semitism, shaming non-Malays while claiming Malaysia to be a Malay-only nation.
Education [...]

Malaysian Youth Index – Absolute Rubbish

The Malaysian Youth Index is an analysis of surveys done on 4087 young people in Malaysia aged 15-40 in 2006. The idea was to get a feel for how young people in Malaysia are faring and what they get up to in their spare time.
It’s absolute RUBBISH!
The Index does not tell you anything about what [...]

Youth Helping Youth: Pinkpau’s Guide to US College Applications

American college applications are a strange beast. I considered applying to a few US colleges before but the sheer number of alien acronyms, requirements, and costs (not to mention the fact that I would theoretically be a “transfer” but wanted to start over) gave me too much of a headache. It is a wonder sometimes [...]

Guest Post: Max Norman – Being a Diplomat in a Multicultural World

Max Norman is the main blogger of Ask The Kid, where he provides answers to life’s queries from the perspective of a young person. We are pleased to bring you a guest post by him today:

Being a Diplomat in a Multicultural World
We no longer live in a world of nations and governments; we live in [...]

The Oncologist Fallacy (or Why University Rankings are Unreliable)

This is an argument that I often receive when debating the merit of applying to a university solely based on their prestige or ranking. Ming, sorry, I don’t mean to pick on you, but you’ve articulated the argument very well.
If getting treatment from the best oncologist in the world is within the means for a [...]

Young Malaysian Entrepreneurs eBook – Where are the WOMEN?

Daniel and I are sorting through the nominations for the Young Malaysians Entrepreneurs eBook, and there’s a glaring omission:
Where are the WOMEN?
We have about a gazillion male nominations, but less than a handful of female nominations. We are sure that there are wonderful young Malaysian females out there being enterprising – we just want to [...]

Entrepreneurship and Languages – two blogs for you

If you’d like some entrepreneurial inspiration, or would like to learn Japanese in double-quick time, here are two blogs you may want to subscribe to:
1) Australia-based HatchThat is filled with interviews with inspiring entrepreneurs from a wide range of industries. They cover all sorts of interests – from sexual and reproductive health to DJs and [...]

The List of Youth Speakers and Inspiring Young People to Invite to Your Conference or Event

In response to tech conference Tokion’s lack of women speakers, women bloggers everywhere banded together to create a list of women speakers for any conference, hosted at Personism. The ever-growing list contains hundreds of inspiring women in design, the arts, entrepreneurship, activism, non-profits, business, and everything else that would certainly be an asset for any [...]

World AIDS Day – Take Action Now

Today, December 1st, is World AIDS Day. Even though this day has been commemorated for many, many years, there is still no cure, there is still much work to be done.
Get Educated: Pelf of The Giving Hands has an excellent post all about the basics of HIV/AIDS. Considering the amount of misinformation out there, it [...]

KaosPilots: Now This Is Learning

Imagine a business school where all your assignments are real-life projects from real clients. Imagine spending your second year in a different country working on community projects. Imagine your final exam being a sustainable project for change.
For the KaosPilots, this is reality.
I’ll just quote the post I made on MetaFilter about them:
The KaosPilots, deemed “the [...]

Thinking About Studying Medicine? Read This First.

For some honestly bizarre reason (which I have yet to discover), Malaysians are particularly kiasu about young people going to medical school. The biggest drama with JPA scholarships revolve around medicine. There is a bigger demand for spaces in medicine than anything else. Students who are the slightest bit brilliant or intelligent are pushed into [...]

Liveblogging: UN Youth Assembly Day 3 – Hip Hop MDG Campaign Part II

Charles Fisher, who founded the Hip Hop Youth Summit, came up to me a few minutes ago and told me he read this blog. Huh, I’m being read by celebrities (sort of). My sister thought I was skeptical of the Hip Hop MDGs Campaign, based on how I wrote the article about the first presentation. [...]

Liveblogging: UN Youth Assembly Day 2 – Women’s Voice Be Heard

I came in a bit late and was greeted with a young girl telling a story about life, the universe, and the power of women. WOW. WOW WOW WOW WOW WOW. If only more speakers had her passion, her grace, her power. Standing ovation. WOW.
She’s followed by Grandmother Sara Smith, an Indigenous Elder from the [...]

Liveblogging: UN Youth Assembly Day 2 – Education = Peace and Development

The next panel is about education – huzzah! Obviously something I was looking forward to. The first speaker is Dr. Cream Wright, Chief of Education at UNICEF. He talks about how it is important to give children a basic education – that doesn’t necessarily mean building more nurseries, but giving children the opportunity to learn [...]