After the ACE Programme, some graduates continue their studies, while others focus on their careers, with all of them bringing value to their countries, their National Disaster Management Organisations, and to ASEAN as a whole. Increasing numbers of ACE Programme graduates represent their countries in different ASEAN meetings and important events such as the AHA Centre’s Governing Board, the ASEAN Committee on Disaster Management and its Working Group meetings. Some graduates are also deployed as ASEAN-ERAT members to real disasters or in regional simulation exercises.
The AHA Centre continues to nurture relationships between itself and alumni, as well as foster relationships among alumni themselves. By sharing their lives together for four or five months in Indonesia and other countries, the bonds between ACE Programme alumni are strong. They share not only experiences and knowledge, but also their personal stories, friendships and even create family-like relationships, such as often naturally occur among ASEAN people
Mr. Meas Rasmey, Office of Civil Defence (OCD) – MIMAROPA (Batch 2)
“The
ACE Programme mades me aware of humility, tolerance, and critical thinking. I
know how to communicate and how to solve a problem better with colleagues and
other people around. I know how to manage information, to direct and lead
during times of crisis. I have shared what I have learnt above with my
colleagues and other people working in the field of crisis management. For
example, I have shared my deployment with other ASEAN-ERAT in the Second High
Level Visit of Myanmar’s Delegation to Bangladesh in December 2019. We set up
an unofficial network of all 19 members of ASEAN-ERAT Cambodia from national to
sub-national levels. We usually share the crisis information and the deployments
in and outside the country. Networking, having a systematic mechanism, managing
and leading in crisis are what I learnt from ACE Programme. This is about how
to serve and save people’s lives effectively particularly in the real time of
crisis.”
