Sentul City, Bogor, December 7, 2021 – SEAMEO BIOTROP attended the Listening to Asia 2021: Building Asean Community Through Storytelling Competition organized by SEAMEO QITEP in Languange (SEAQIL) held in mixed mode and attended by 42 offline participants and 40 online participants. This event's goal is to strengthen the ASEAN community by building a better understanding of regional culture through language. The activity started at 08.30 WIB by the Moderator, Tiarma Intan Marpaung, S.pd., Mpd, followed by the Indonesia National anthem, SEAMEO Colors, and the SEAMEO Song “Building The Future”.

The agenda continued by the report on the Listening to Asia 2021 program by the Director of SEAQIL, Dr. Luh Anik Mayani, she explained that the target participants of the activity were teachers and students for 6 categories of competition, namely Arabic, English, Japanese, German, Mandarin, and French. Participants in this activity came from several countries, namely Indonesia, Brunei Darussalam, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, and the Netherlands. Also present, Dr. Kritsachai Somsaman, Deputy Director for Administration and Communication, SEAMEO Secretariat to give his opening remarks, he welcomed and supported the activities held by SEAQIL related to community strengthening in ASEAN.

93 videos were selected from 153 registered videos through the screening/selection based on general criteria and technical aspects stated in the video guide. In the next stage of the selection process, 24 videos were picked based on technical aspects and contents, 3 videos from each language category. 18 teams were selected for a live performance today, December 7, 2021, which will be carried out in a mixed live performance. Eighteen of the best teams presented the same story to be judged by the jury.

The competition activity ended at 16.35 followed by the announcement of the winner of each category by the Moderator, Nia Kurniawati, M.Pd followed by a closing speech by the Director of SEAQIL and closed by the Moderator followed by an offline group photo session. "See you at another event!", concluded the Moderator. (US/TW)