Qamil Mirza

Profile

Qamil Mirza is from Petaling Jaya, Malaysia. He is the co-founder and president of Youths After Midnight (Youths AM). Youths AM is ‘advocating for children’s rights and empowering youth to be more digitally resilient in the digital space’. Petaling Jaya wanted to become the first child-friendly city in Malaysia. Qamil was elected the vice president of a children’s council, which gave Qamil’s school training on the child-friendly city framework laid out by UNICEF. This included workshops that educate children about this concept and the basic rights that children have. Qamil said he previously had not known anything about children’s rights, but he had a natural curiosity due to his previous engagement in social work, business consultation, and stem technology. He said his experience during the workshop heightened his ‘levels of realisation about the things that go on, you know, sort of behind the curtains… Online child sexual exploitation, bullying, and child marriages – these three things seem to be a really huge issue that many people don’t know about, until they show you the stories.’ Qamil was 18 when the children’s council ended, and then, together with friends from the council he founded Youth AM, launching a project about staying safe online. He said, ‘Our focus was always based on online child protection and creating modules for educating children about their rights online, the “dos and don’ts”.’ Qamil identifies as a peace educator, as Youth AM focuses on educating youth.

Story

Qamil Mirza is one of six teenagers from Malaysia who took it upon themselves to address community issues by forming a group called Youths AM. The group focuses on providing educational workshops to children and has collaborated with local NGOs. In order to reach the children, Qamil had to reach out to ‘local champions’, a central person who tends to know everyone living in a certain household area. This person then conveys the message to the parents, who consult with their children. In-person workshops had about 30 to 40 children, but when the workshops had to go online, Qamil said it was very hard to keep their attention.

Youths AM focuses on its collaboration with NGOs, rather than the government. Qamil said he worked with the government in the past and, ‘It was not a fun experience. Everything just seems so slow. There are so many problems in our communities. But I feel like the government [itself] cannot cover all of them. They’re such a big organisation that they wouldn’t know the ins and outs of local problems.’ Qamil highlighted the importance of teaching youth, as he believes that it has a powerful resonating effect. He said, ‘They will make fewer mistakes in the future as adults. They will be able to teach the lessons learned to more youth, and if they are inspired by the knowledge they learn, they will be more willing to spread this knowledge.’ He added, ‘Anyone can figure out a solution, throw it out there, see what people think, and see if it hits or not.’ 

Qamil's biggest concern is the children’s safety aspect. He said, ‘When COVID-19 hit, there was a huge rise in online child sexual exploitation. Especially since children had nothing to do since they were not going outside anymore.’ He said the danger lies with not knowing when you are being used or manipulated online. Qamil said that in Malaysia at the time, there were online groups created with inappropriate content sent to children. He described this as a ‘global phenomenon’.

Qamil said Youth AM faced many challenges, including the disadvantage of being young. ‘It felt like we were just a token for [the government], to show UNICEF, hey, look, we have a Children’s Council, can we get that acknowledgement that we’re a child-friendly city now?’ Another significant challenge was funding, as it was a logistical problem, and Qamil quoted, ‘You don’t ask for money until you’ve proven that you can show results. And that’s what we tried to do.’ The last challenge was the staffing shortage, as there were only six people at the beginning. He realised that they were not enough due to their age and other commitments, and the reality that most of them were now working from different countries.

Qamil said he feels more empathy towards the people around him since starting this project. ‘After the work I’ve done, I’ve realised that if you really want things to improve, and you really want things to get done, you need to take it into your own hands and actually figure out well, what can I do about it? Complaining about it, sure, means that maybe some people start noticing a problem, but it doesn’t really translate into the execution of a solution.’ Qamil said he thinks it is useful to reach out to people who work in that field and have experience, who can give advice on how certain problems are resolved or for there to be general guidelines. His tips for youth peacebuilders include: set a direction, focus on a theme, brainstorm solutions, take feedback from NGOs, work out the logistics of the execution and use a step-by-step approach. He said, ‘You’re not going to get it perfect on the first try [….] You rinse and repeat the process. And naturally, you just get better at it over time.’