By Kardison Lumban Batu, BEc, MSc

Lecturer of Polytechnic State of Pontianak, Business Administration

Westk Kalimantan

When a group takes time out for gathering at a retreat, the whole should gain benefit, it supposed to be and hopefully yes. Any amount of time taken to get away and focus on good leadership and collaboration will bear fruit in the lives of individuals and the social life! With a whole world of needs and possibilities facing us, how do we decide what to give our life and energies to? This retreat has always recognized that offered mutual benefit and contains social value for all of us to implement and apply that common good in Asia in our daily life and environment. From my perspective in the Retreats held in Beijing, our main objective is to eliminate all distractions from each and every barricade to allow the good deed work in a multitude of lives.

Here are a few things I’ve noticed and gained in the Retreat held in Beijing.

•    Renewed and refreshed, we are able to share the key truths that gave us a new perspective in Leadership, Networking, Cooperation, Caring, Social Life, and even Collaboration

•    Unity developed among us at the retreat spreads through the whole week as we return to fellowship and home.

•    Relationships at home are dealt with in a more positive and hopeful manner due to the chance to rest and find renewal in good relationship

•    Revived and restored teachers and leaders are better prepared to encourage and minister.

•    Developing deeper and more trusting relationships among us

•    Inspiring teammates to sprint to the finish on an important project for any purposes

•    Convincing each other on the ability and skill owning

•    Inspiring, encouraging all participants to become lifelong learners and agent of change.

•    Creating enthusiasm and negotiating during a difficult change

•    Negotiating a complex contract that benefits all sides

•    Nurturing a corporate culture that engenders loyalty and retention

•    Being Present not pretentious.

•    Reaching Out not looking down.

•    Understanding the role of the effective leader in an organization

•    Ability to assess our natural leadership style, and identify areas for development and improvement.

•    Learning how to make decisions to involve team members to a lesser or greater degree, depending on the circumstances of each situation.

•    Learning to communicate, delegate, and follow through effectively, to help the team deliver organization results and develop group capacities and strengths

Why should you go to retreat?

•    Leadership sharing. We have learnt on leadership by sharing the leadership skill since all the participants noticeable an enthusiastic person and available for future leader.

•    To get acquainted. Others benefit by gaining acquainted, the result of networking is always been fruitful.

•    To have Fun. It was a great moment and golden opportunity to have you all there and having fun as well.

I do strongly believe that in our deepest heart that we have strong wish to have reunion again, please do not let us meet once in a life time. Hopefully we can encounter at the next BABA, meeting, seminar, workshop or even the summit of Asian Leader in the near future. Keep you all in my heart.

By Pham Kim Ngoc (Ms), Helen Keller International Vietnam, Hanoi, Vietnam

Before joining the BABA6 retreat program, I was a little bit worried and wondered how this retreat would be. Only one week to become better leaders to build a better Asia? How could it happen within one week? And so on, many questions came to my mind that time.

However, those kinds of questions just disappeared when I first met my room mate Sadia, Pakistani who is very friendly and then the whole group of BABA participants. Everyone was so friendly that I did not think that we just first met for the first time and that we have been friends for a long time. I still remembered we were asked to draw portrait of the person of each other with one drawing without opening the eyes. It was so funny and everyone had his portrait at hand just within a second.

The following days came with the pechakucha presentations where everyone had to make one presentation of 10 slides with the limited time setting for 20 seconds per slide and we had to learn how to talk within this limit, it was also interesting though. It was great that we had chances to listen and interact with resource persons who have deep knowledge in many fields such as Johnson Paul, National Library Board, Singapore with the “12 Angry Men: Transforming Opinions and Groupthink”; On Creative Hats by Edward de Bono an “Think out of the box” idea; Mr. Shuichi Ohno on “The Nippon Foundation and Its Work”; Prof Amitav Acharya; Dr Anupam Saraph: “Technology and Democracy: Lessons from the Recent General Elections in India”. We also had a chance to climb the Great Wall and experienced how Great it actually is.

The last night ended with the Takbeer night and everyone wore traditional clothes of his own country. It was interesting to see how diverse it is in Asian countries that we, the young future leaders need to preserve and develop them in appropriate ways.

Yet, the retreat would not be extremely successful without the presence of Maki Honda, the Fanatic four, facilitators, Mary and Peking university staff who made this retreat unforgettable.

Many things that we learnt from the participants and scholars during the retreat have been applied such as “Think out of the box” idea and this has been practiced right after the Retreat.

After all, my questions and wonderings before the retreat were answered after the retreat finished. And the most important thing we have after this retreat is the networking that we hope we will build and develop it so that we can build a “better of yourself contributing to a better Asia.”

Tamy Yamamoto M.D.

Master student of Community and Global Health

Graduate School of Medicine, University of Tokyo

Participating in the BABA 6 retreat was an incredible experience and it has been the best opportunity I have ever had to share, interact and learn with people from different countries, cultures and backgrounds.

Before going to BABA 6, I had many expectations about this retreat, as I wondered how after a 1-week long retreat we could improve our leadership skills and most importantly, how 19 people from different countries, meeting for the 1st time, were going to be able to build a strong network to work together for the betterment of Asia? After the 1st few days of the retreat, I saw how it could be possible. As our BABA 6 family grew closer together, I was certain that this bond was going to last for long time after the retreat was over.

During the retreat we had many activities, each one with its own purpose. Starting with the ice-breaking activities, lead by the Fantastic 4, which helped us to feel comfortable sharing our thoughts and feeling as a family working together towards a common goal. The presentations by the resource persons, gave us the tools to become better persons and leaders. Being able to learn from their experiences and their advices was an extraordinary opportunity. The activities lead by the Facilitators (Incredible 2), especially the Pecha Kucha Morning, was an enriching experience where we could learn what each of the participants does in their own country and how each of us is already a young leader in his/her own field/area.

I found very interesting one of the last activities we did, which was “Creating a better Me”. After learning from the resource persons about leadership and the characteristics leaders should have, in this activity we had to make introspection and come up with ways to improve ourselves as persons and as future leaders. After it we had to share it with other people, and also ask for their advice on how to improve. Although it could had seem a difficult task, the trust and friendship developed during the retreat, made this activity easy and enlightening; getting good advices which I plan to work on.

Finally, I would like to thank all the people involved in this program, for giving me the opportunity to participate and for making it an inspiring and unforgettable experience. In this retreat, I not only learned about leadership, other cultures and countries, but also about myself. I hope our BABA 6 family can meet again in the near future and that through our friendship and network, we are able to work together to build a better Asia.

By Vanthana Nolintha, BBusCom, MEcon

Researcher, National Economic Research Institute (NERI)

Vientiane, Lao PDR.

When I was first recommended by one of my senior friends to apply for the participation in the BABA retreat program, I was not sure what I will gain from and how I will get engaged with this one week get-away. I was somehow convinced that this program was designed to help building the leadership skills and I therefore applied for this program. After being one of BABA families, I realize that the decision to join this wonderful program has been one of my best decisions I have made in my life. I will next try to put some of my key thoughts about this program in the remaining of this page.

BABA 6 helps connect me with many other young leaders who share the same passion of the betterment of Asia. One of the most interesting features of this program is the opportunity to meet with many different individuals from all walks of life. Each participant, in my opinion, is the true leader in the respective field who has contributed in his or her own way to make Asia and the world a better place. This network will allow a more productive relationship and cooperation on various aspects in the future.

BABA 6 makes me realize that even one person can make a positive change to this world. Throughout the retreat, I was given opportunity to meet, listen to and interact with various resource persons from different fields. Most of them are successful leaders of the world who, in many cases, start making a difference from themselves and later involve others to join with them to create positive changes.

BABA 6 re-confirms my belief that people can be different but we can live and share with each other. Many participants are very much different in terms of cultural, academic, professional, political and religious background. We however manage to break the ice, big thanks to FANTASTIC 4 and our facilitators, and establish a very strong bond which has proved to last even after the retreat. I believe if others in the wider community share this belief, we will not see many of the terrible problems in many parts of the world where people hate each other just because they are different.

Finally, I’d like to use this opportunity to thank everyone who makes this wonderful program possible and let me be part of BABA families. For my BABA 6 families, I thank every one of you from my heart for making my BABA 6 experience a fruitful and joyful one. By meeting and connecting with you, I discover another part in me that want to do something “out of the box” for the betterment of myself, my family, my society and the world at large. I believe we all will meet in many more occasions in the years to come. Let the end of the retreat mark the beginning of our life long relationship and join our hands for the betterment of Asia and the world.

(Sept 13 – 20, 2009)

I came to Beijing one afternoon in early Sept, where BABA 6 Retreat was organized from Sept 13 to 20, 2009. The weather was perfect and I was totally relaxed without any depression or pressures at all. I did attend similar workshops and retreats before, each time, I was so tired and worried as I had tried to fulfill what I was supposed to do. This time was completely different, I did not have to be responsible for anything, except, I was requested to prepare one presentation from home to share with everyone at the retreat. So interesting, because that was the first time to experience of Pecha Kucha presentation style, the topic was free of choice. I was supposed to present in ten slides to convey my ideas to the audiences with twenty seconds for each slide and not more than twenty words in each slide. My first thinking is that, it may be a bit tough for me as I am used to talking a lot whenever I have a chance to present and I thought that 200 seconds of presentation is just enough for my introduction only.

Pecha Kucha – style presentations

I have a habit, it is so much job orientation, that I always look forward to clear objectives set up at the beginning of each workshop or retreat and then review if those objectives are able to be achieved at the end. When Mr. Raja, on the first day, announced the retreat was for getting to know one another and building network for later on, I was so released. However, when I got more involved in later days I realized that I got a lot, more than my expectations. So what were the most significant things I gained for myself then?

First, a part from getting to know one another and building network, I did change a bit about my styles of a leader. I was so much Asian traditional orientation; never dared to step out of old box of thinking and not so much initiative as well.

Second, I was having so many privileges to be updated and shared with different perspectives from global speakers at the retreat on different international hot topics. Those topics are not new to all of us, but the motivations were that we realized our potentials of real leaders in this world, specifically in our Asia and our extended hands for sharing, discussing and solving international problems are inevitable with our full great honors. From those different perspectives, I feel like I have more encouragements and empowerments to work toward my communities and people living around me.

Third, I did learn valuable skills from Fantastic Four and Amazing Two, their approaching and mobilizing methods are what young leaders should learn for themselves. Amazingly, not only skills but also meanings brought to us throughout various games they facilitated, all were so meaningful. One of their games reminded me that it is not always good if a leader keeps chasing new things or new promotions but sometimes leaders should know where and when to stop for a while on their journeys, look back what have been done and value what leaders got and achieved . Diversity of designed activities was also one of special points need learning; interactions with different people, indoor and outdoor activities gave participants a sense of close cooperation, critical thinking and problem solving. Which, of course, urged and nurtured our common vision and bonding toward a betterment of ourselves and of an Asia.

One of the exercises with the Fantastic Four

Coming back to the meaning of this retreat; young leader with common good in Asia, yes, your leaders’ styles, your thoughts and your perspectives toward a better Asia may be different from mine. However, Baba 6 was a forum for such different leaders and different ideas from different countries in Asia to share and merge into one common vision. Moving forwards to one common vision of a betterment in Asia in the future, of which, efforts to build a better Asia may not possible for one individual but it is highly possible if a strong network with enthusiasm to share and act toward a betterment of Asia from all Asian families, especially, all BABA families. On the top of what had been going on in one week in Beijing, I have to say that the retreat really opened a new door to me. That door is not going from one room to another but it is a door outreaching my mind to a new world, where I have a network of fabulous international friends but importantly, I am empowered and motivated toward my next steps in my life. As a member of Baba 6, I also dedicate myself to a better Asia by trying my best to fulfill by current job of a development worker; working with the poor and vulnerable people to improve their lives. I believe that suffering from poverty and illiteracy are the main reasons affecting to a betterment Asia.

Tran Quang Tuan, Vietnam, Personal Reflection on BABA 6