Undi18

As a Co-Founder of Undi18, we have successfully advocated for a historic constitutional amendment to reduce the minimum voting age in Malaysia to 18 years old. To date, Undi18 is a non-partisan social enterprise focusing on voter education and youth public policy engagement.

Since the inception of Undi18, there has been a growing community of Undi18 program alumni in Malaysia. Hence, there is a need for a larger avenue for these youth changemakers to connect and engage with each other, to acquire support in starting and continuing projects in their own communities, and to contribute to the nation-building in our country.

If I am selected as an Elevate Prize winner of 2021, I will use its funding, mentorship, connections and support to launch UndiNegaraku, an Undi18-powered organization to build a movement of champions for democracy. The word “Undi'' stands for “vote”, and “Negaraku'' stands for “my country” in our local Malay language.

By establishing a network of state chapter committees across Malaysia, UndiNegaraku will provide youths with a unique avenue to learn about policy and activism from a non-partisan lens, and serves as encouragement for youths to actively participate in the socio-political democratic life on the local and national levels.

When I was studying in the US, I observed that my peers in Malaysia were engaging in political discourses as early as the age of 18. However, the youth in my country were not viewed as rational adults with opinions on national issues, and are often belittled by many public figures. I was then inspired to return to Malaysia with a goal to advocate for the lowering of the voting age from 21 to 18 years old. With that, I co-founded Undi18 and in 2019, it has resulted in a historic constitutional amendment of the decade, impacting 7.8 million Malaysians to exercise their voting rights and ultimately, strengthen the democracy of Malaysia.

I understood that my work could not end there and then. There was a need to further empower the youths. Additionally, as a young Muslim woman in Malaysia, the current culture and existing systems in my country do not promote young women to voice out or take up spaces in leadership positions. Better representation ensures better policy-making processes that consider all members of society; both women and men. Today, I am leading Undi18 to ensure that our policymaking programs are innovative and inclusive.

Malaysia was one of the only eight countries in the world whereby 18-year-olds do not have the right to vote. As we have successfully advocated for the historic constitutional amendment of the decade to lower the voting age to 18 years old, this will greatly impact 22% of the Malaysian population to exercise their voting rights and strengthen the democracy of Malaysia.

To date, our work is to create a larger, educated and activated youth voter base to challenge the political status quo in Malaysia and ensure greater and more progressive policies are being implemented. The Malaysian population is not accurately reflected in our Parliament because of the prolonged dominance of male and baby boomer leaders that had led to the deep-seated gerontocracy and patriarchy in our society. This situation puts over half the Malaysian population like me, a woman and a youth at a disadvantage as there is a lack of our voices in policymaking. 

We serve a purpose to solve the lack of democratic representation in Malaysia and provide adequate platforms for marginalized groups and the y

Undi18 are the pioneers of digital advocacy Malaysia. We are proof that we can reimagine activism, rethink advocacy, and re-strategize on how we use digital platforms to push our voices forward. 

At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Malaysia faced an undemocratic takeover of the government. Furthermore, the aforementioned new government suspended its parliamentary sittings and this suppresses our democracy as elected representatives were unable to discuss issues that matter.

Therefore, we organized the first youth-initiated digital parliament in the world. Undi18 brought together 222 youths to represent all 222 constituencies of Malaysia, similar to how a real parliamentary seating would.

Apart from intending to prove the feasibility of a virtual parliamentary sitting, we aim to platform the voices of the Malaysian youth and increase awareness about parliamentary proceedings among the younger demographic. The incredible response to the digital parliament program has been a true litmus test with undeniable results with regards to youth political participation in the county.

During the two weeks, the representatives organized themselves into caucuses and blocks, lobbied each other, initiated meetings with elected representatives, conducted surveys, focus groups and mock proceedings, and all in all went above and beyond in their efforts and participation.

I believe that progressive democracy can be achieved through the youth programs that we run. This is crucial as Undi18 is normalizing why democracy matters in a young country such as Malaysia, as we are at risk of slipping into authoritarianism as seen in recent years. 

Young people have the highest stake in the system and are passionate in pushing for progress. Since the passing of the Undi18 constitutional amendment, democratic values are increasingly adopted in several sectors. For example, the government has implemented a policy to reintroduce elections to run in schools as it was previously forbidden.  

Moving forward, Undi18 aspires to create 20,000 Malaysian youth changemakers in various sectors. Sharing our recipe of successful advocacy, experiences and skillsets; we run training programs so that other youths around the world can replicate this journey in many other causes that they believe in. As a result of our various programs, Undi18 now have youths pushing for key issues such as environmentalism, women rights and other humanistic causes. 

Undi18 is proof that by taking the lead and serving as an example, we are inspiring youths to be informed and responsible citizens in the electoral process to constantly push for good governance.