By Judith Kajuma
More than fifty people among them Ambassador Stephanus Yuwond of the Republic of Indonesia, Ambassador Masakui of the Republic of India, Ambassador Amarjit Sarjit Singh of the republic of Malaysia and families of the ASEAN community attended a family fun day held at Malaysian house in Chisipite, Harare.
Speaking to diplomat magazine Ambassador Singh who hosted the event, described it as a symbol of togetherness and oneness.
“ASEAN is now formally structured as you will evidence here in Zimbabwe through our two embassies, Indonesia and Malaysia. We will be hosting a lot of activities that brings our people together and this Family Day is one of them. The prime objectives of the Fun Day are to bring our nationals around Harare together, get to know each other and have fun. All this is done in the ASEAN spirit of oneness, one community,” said ambassador Singh.
Ambassador Singh said these events will be used to promote trade and investment between Zimbabwe and the ASEAN community. He said people should look forward to more such events.
“This is our inaugural ASEAN family fun day and it was structured wisely, we look forward to many more. Such platforms present opportunities to exchange ideas and promote our countries’ products. We are also celebrating 20 years of ASEAN-India Day and we had the pleasure of the company of the Indian ambassador whom we invited as guest. ASEAN wants to interact with other countries of the world, we have ASEAN-China, ASEAN—India, ASEAN-US, Canada and many more,” said Ambassador Singh.
Adding on Ambassador Yuwond of Indonesia said, “This is a gathering among ourselves in Harare and it is a way of showing our closeness and togetherness by having our ASEAN family fun day and we are happy to have the chance to get together in this beautiful city of Harare.”
Madam Pam Sidhu Singh, the wife of the Malaysian ambassador said she was not expecting such a turnout considering that community is too small, made up of only two embassies and that some families had gone on.
