ABSTRACT

It is undeniable that the relationship between the states became one of the forms of
cooperation in order to maintain a good relationship of a country. Various tribes on
this world bring out the diversity in customs, cultures and patterns of life itself,
however some of them are also still influenced by other tribes in the sense that
acculturation had been occurred between the newcomers and the native tribes thus
causing the diversity of the society around the world. One of obstacles in integrating
the citizens is the lack of understanding and recognition of each other which causes
the alienation and the gap between others. The lack of understanding between the
people brings out one of the soft diplomacy strategy, namely people-to-people
connection.
This essay aims to introduce the people-to-people connection strategy as one of the
keys to build and improve the integrity & identity of this world, which is related to
socio-cultural aspect. The concept of people-to-people connection which meant to
touch all the layers of society to understand and know each other, since the people
from both regions do not know well the respective social life and culture.
To realize the mutual relationship between the people of these region, people-to-
people strategy is done by approaching citizens from all class through the social
media and voluntary works. By social media, the government should provide an
application as a platform to build the mutual understanding through the internet. An
agreement between the mass media from all regions should be made in order to
promote the respective culture through commercials. Through Voluntary Community,
the volunteers could learn the structure of social life, exchanging the culture they
brought in as well as giving the proper education in excluded area inside the
respective country. No matter where you are from, the work you are doing, how old
you are, as long as we have the same vision, we could be one as a big fandom of the
world.

Key terms: Diversity, People-to-People Connection Strategy, Voluntary

SOCIO-CULTURAL PARTNERSHIP;
UNDERSTANDING UNITY IN DIVERSITY BY PEOPLE TO PEOPLE
CONNECTION STRATEGY

Introduction
It is undeniable that the relationship between the states became one of the forms of
cooperation in order to maintain a good relationship of a country. Both bilateral and
multilateral relations had become one of the things that are important in order to fulfill
the needs in the country and it also becomes a diplomatic media for a country to
increase the mutual cooperation in a wider scope. The International Relation becomes
an importance for a country since at the present times no country can stand alone.
Through the international relations, achieving several state goals are easier to be
carried on and easier to create world peace. Thus no one nation in the world can break
free from engagement with other nations and countries.
Various tribes in this world bring out the diversity in customs, cultures and patterns
of life itself, however some of them are also still influenced by other tribes in the
sense that acculturation had been occurred between the newcomers and the native
tribes thus causing the diversity of the society of the world. One of obstacles in
integrating the citizens of the wold is the lack of understanding and recognition of
each other which causes the alienation and the gap between others. It should be
understood that the relations between countries have great potential in the global
economy which certainly must touch all people, including individuals. Therefore, this
form of implementing the multilateral relations in various dimensions should be done
through diplomacy which has become an integral part of every state which runs the
international relations.
The strategy of people-to-people connection becomes a form of soft diplomacy
which is capable to bridge the interaction between people to get to know each other.
Soft diplomacy in a form of intangible culture by people to people connection yields a
stronger diplomacy. Soft diplomacy can be defined as the exchange of ideas,
information, art and other cultural aspects between the state and the nation, including
all countries to create mutual understanding. This diplomatic strength will be very
beneficial for a country with other countries to maintain and establish friendly
relations with other countries. In other words, it could be the instrument in
implementing the foreign policy of a country as the foundation of friendship which
guides the nations towards cooperation and peace in the unification of the diversity by
the people-to-people connection.

The Important of Socio-Cultural Patnership

Culture is the important things of our life, The importance of culture to a state it
should be needed this is because a country cannot stand without a nation and a nation
is a collection of society who certainly has cultures that reflects the identity of each
community. Culture refers to the cumulative deposit of knowledge, experience,
beliefs, values, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion, notions of time, roles, spatial
relations, concepts of the universe, and material objects and possessions acquired by a
group of people in the course of generations through individual and group striving.
The position that the ideas, meanings, beliefs and values people learn as members of
society determines human nature.
Culture describes the creative life in a community. Culture is all the abilities that
are created by individuals or groups within a short time or a long time affecting a
group of people and have an influence on other human beings, if it may have been
affected by other humans. With the creation of a culture it will be able to give several
good impacts on the mindset and the development of society. The culture all around
the world is different each other, therefore we need a cooperation to support each
other cultures in order to introduce the culture of each other because culture plays an
important role for social life and each person cannot escape from it.

People-to-People Connection as a Strategy Towards Integrated Community

People-to-people connection is one of the keys to improve and develop the
regional economy which is related to socio-cultural aspect. This issue has become an
important agenda in developing the integrity of community. At this time all country
has embarked on a number of initiatives including education, culture, social welfare,
youth, women, rural development and poverty eradication to name a few but all of
that is not enough for touching the lower classes in society.
The concept of people-to-people connection is meant to touch all the layers of
society to understand each other and know each other. As we know, the relationship
between the each countries indeed has progressed well but the problem is people
between each countries did not know each other. Let us take the perspective of the
Korean community about the Indonesia as the example. Mostly when questioned
about a country named Indonesia, Korean people are mostly answered Indonesia is
India. It is caused by a common mention in Korean language of India as Indo (인도)
while Indonesia (인도네시아) equals to India + nesia. They are not able to
distinguish it where we know that Indonesia and India are different countries. Also,
most of them only know several places in Southeast Asia regions which are famous in
tourism, like Bali of Indonesia and Marina Bay of Singapore. This also occurs in other
ASEAN countries. The lack of promotion that touches the society creates the
obstacles in order to integrate the relationship between all country around the world.
We must give the a better comprehension between two sides that we are one
fandom, one vision and one ideas in order to promote mutual benefit between others.
These include promoting awareness and education, and enhancing people-to-people
links, as well as of languages should be encouraged. This will also have the added
effect of awareness among its citizens, particularly the youth. Caring and Sharing
Community, should be promoted to encourage regional cooperation on basic people to
people connection enhance capacity building of the people, the quality and
compatibility of education, including technical and vocational, and skills training in
the region should also be improved including collaborative studies and research
programs among scholars and scientists. Therefore, with the same approaching, the
mutual communication of all regions could be done with each other according to the
field for example, that farmers with farmers, teachers with teachers, student with
student, researcher with researchers, doctors with doctors etc. Also, through this
method of communication, each citizen from all regions could help each other
according to their respective fields for the progress together.
Several activities are undertaken each year to nurture talent and promote greater
interactions between scholars, writers, artists and media practitioners and of course
the commoners. Amongst others, the activities include the Youth Camp, foreign
exchange and greater interactions between local peoples and the tourists, initiatives on
liberalization of tourism and travel related services, upgrading of tourism
infrastructure, enhancement of the skills of tourism related personnel and encouraging
greater participation from the private sector in the development of the tourism. a
reference for teacher training and teaching and be a good platform to create the
awareness, cultural understanding and greater awareness of each other’s culture in
order to create deeper mutual understanding and forge a sense of commonality for
students of all ages and levels. Key regional movers and shakers from private sector,
academic, non-government organizations or local community, can be invited to
retreats to brainstorm on how the states could continue to be relevant in the rapidly
developing world and cultural performing which is considered as the effective
solution to give the full comprehension of touching the citizens of this region since it
is understandable for the commoners.
Volunteerism as One of People to People Connection Strategy to Build Harmony
in Diversity
To achieve development goals of the world unity goals can be done through socio-
cultural pillars. With the cooperation in one office and establishing social
relationships it will wake a sense of unity among the people of all regions. Thus, the
expansion of public relations between them can be established through social
cohesion and culture. In addition, the implementation of people-to-people connection
can be organized through youth activities and education. These youth activities can be
done by voluntary works that can be done by the youth. Voluntary works, particularly,
becomes an effective way as the medium of cultural exchange through people-to-
people connection because the youth can go directly to the people and seeing the
conditions around, causing a sense of attachment to one another and provide mutual
understanding between others.
For example is Muda Mengajar Samarinda. Muda Mengajar Samarinda is a Youth
Community in Indonesia which concerns in teaching English for underprivileged kids
and the kids with disabilities. The learning activity are based on voluntarily (free) by
Samarinda volunteers and took the initiative to provide free English lessons for the
kids from middle to lower economic class. Muda Mengajar Samarinda was formed on
February 14, 2016, this community wants to give equal opportunities in education and
increase youth awareness of environmental conditions, instill tolerant and voluntary
values to contribute actively in social empowerment. As a forum for youth to share
their knowledge through voluntary teaching of English to the underprivileged kids,
"The Spirit of Learning" means: all members of the Muda Mengajar Samarinda have
a passion to always learn, improve their self-esteem, and a positive sense in the social
development.
By establishing the Voluntary Community, this forum can organize the youths
who have a willingness to participate in social activities in other countries. The
voluntary activities could be done in many ways, including sending the youth to teach
in the hinterland within a country whose education is still lacking. This activity is
expected to increase the unity and awareness among the people around the world.
Through these activities, volunteers do not just attend social activities in other
countries, but also know the culture of each other and can socialize with fellow
members of volunteers from other countries, including the local community. This may
encourage people to promote unity and eliminate the negative stereotype, which
would have an impact on the development of the united body. This activity could be
an effective way to touch the lower-middle class people since they can directly
interact with the society and touch all layers by people to people connection.

The Power of Social and Mass Media as a Part of People-to-People Strategy

In this globalization era, the technology of communication has evolved rapidly so
that no modern society can survive without communication. This is the underlying
concept that humans have a need to interact socially. Communications which is
related to the cultural life in the broadest sense (including cross-cultural) occurs in
various forms and shapes. Technological developments helped to provide a very
important meaning in the field of communication and social interaction can take place
and created without the limitation of space and time. The role of communication as a
driver of social interaction in the community can continue to grow in every aspect of
community life that aims to meet the interests and needs of individuals and certain
groups. This dependency becomes the reason why social media is the most effective
way in order to form the relationships and people-to-people connection between the
region.
Communication through social media could be the bridge of people-to-people to
get to know each other by exchanging ideas on the global development and
introducing the socio-cultural conditions of each citizen from any regions. Through
social media as individuals we can also introduce the culture of origin of our country
through public diplomacy, which take advantage of social media in order to introduce
the culture of origin, such as writing online articles or uploading photos on culture or
tourism places to social media so that other people could know and interested in our
culture. Thus we hope that all regions can develop together through people-to-people
connection with mutual understanding as the first step and introduce people to give
and sharing each other through social media.
Media cooperation is needed in developing the perspective of the community
towards the country because mass media is a key element in building a community
paradigm. A communications strategy, consisting of a comprehensive set of coherent
communications activities can be done by organizing an agreement in TV commercial
by promoting each country of the world. This effort could be aimed at achieving the
objectives of connectivity, as it is envisaged for outreach and advocacy purposes as
implementation requires close collaboration among stakeholders or constituents,
which could cover the mass media, relevant representatives of the public and private
sectors as well as national and local authorities. In addition, it is also important to
assess stakeholders’ or constituents’ concerns, expectations, interests, and perceptions
of Connectivity activities. It is also essential that the communications strategy takes
into account processes that have been initiated and established, giving special
attention to lessons learned and existing channels of dissemination. This effort can be
further supplemented through regular features in local media such as radio, television
and newspapers for the benefit of the rural communities which have limited access to
the Internet. So this could be the most effective way to touch the lower-middle class
people since the ads become the easiest pathway to be accepted the entire community
without exception.

Conclusion
As a human, culture becomes the guide to behave and being a social person inside
a society. Each country has its own culture, and it occurs to all regions as well.
Through people-to-people connection each citizen will learn a different approaching
of life by learning other cultures. Such interactions could be pursued or facilitated
through awareness, collaboration, exchange and outreach programs. Apart from the
curricular offerings or education modules and virtual learning resource centers in any
fields, the building of a sense of community in the region is best facilitated by direct
people-to-people interaction and cooperative endeavors.
Based on the pillars in the strategy of uniting the citizens by the people-to-people
connection which each of activity pillar is based on the vision and mission of the
world, it will build the united the world body which leads to the creation of harmony
and unity between the people. Seeing the positive effects from the implementation of
people-to-people connectivity it is positive that all countries will be able to realize the
"Uniting People, Creating the Future". The relationship between them can be achieved
in accordance with the United Nation master plans.
A well-integrated economy sector which improves buying and selling goods and
services, defense cooperation to maintain security, and the improvement of social and
cultural activities could remark the attachment between regions. Each of the citizens
who move across the country or interact with other foreign citizens could create a
harmony and appreciate their differences which lead to mutual understanding. It will
be better if the cooperation and mutual understanding is reached through the
respective fields from the people around the world. This could be done by the citizens
as the main directors who will direct the development of their home country and the
other countries as well. The government acts as the advisor who gives the regulations
and effective rules and laws, however, it is the citizens who act based on the given
regulations and laws. Therefore, the unity between the citizens could be reached and
the better development could be done by citizens in the future, not only in establishing
the power in economic sector, but also in all aspects of life.

References

Association of Southeast Asian Nations (2011). Master Plan of ASEAN Connectivity.

Jakarta: ASEAN Secretariat.
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (2012). ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community
Blueprint 2025. Jakarta: ASEAN Secretariat.
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (2012). Leaders’ Statement on ASEAN Plus
Three Partnership on Connectivity. 15th Anniversary of ASEAN Plus Three
cooperation, (p. 3). Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (2010). Plan of Action to Implement the Joint
Declaration on ASEAN-Republic of Korea Strategic Partnership for Peace and
Prosperity (2011-2015) . The 13th ASEAN-ROK Summit, (p. 26). Hanoi.
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (2016). 2015 ASEAN Socio-Cultural
Community (ASCC) Scorecard. Jakarta: ASEAN Secretariat.
Association of South East Asia nations. (2010). ASEAN SELAYANG PANDANG, Edisi
ke-19. Jakarta: Kementrian Luar Negeri.

Cipto, Bambang. (2010). HUBUNGAN INTERNSIONAL DI ASIA TENGGARA.

Yogyakarta: PUSTAKA PELAJAR.

Author details:
Dhysti Windyswara
dhysti.widys@gmail.com
+6282150793848
Republic of Indonesia
Passport Number: B 3910999