Recently I was attending on youth conference, the atmosphere in the hall was full of enthusiasm where youths where in their best by throwing lots of ideas and bringing new dimensions in discussion and debates. In the middle of all the discussion in the hall there was one section who were keeping silent and watching all the show, when enquired came to know that they were attending such conference for the first time and in fact participating in any such discussion for the first time. As the discussion progressed the silent group started to speak. So happy to see a group which was keeping silent has got so much of ideas. This meeting is taking place in the urban setting, where atleast youth have got platforms where they can share their thoughts, ideas and learn from one other and in fact in the meeting came across many groups who come together and do some kind of voluntary activities.
The next day I was talking to various youth groups in the tribal area, many youth don’t have aspirations and those who have aspiration in life don’t know how to achieve it. I was just comparing this youth group with the group which I met the other day in the urban setting. One who have grown up in the city have so many opportunities, if not have various platform where they can come together and share their opinions and thoughts. This privilege of having the platform is not available for the youth in the rural area, they don’t even sit and discuss, debate on any such issue, even if they do, it is mostly of unproductive, the reason is due to lack of facilitators as there is no one to facilitate the discussion, because of this there is no exposure, experience sharing, inter change of ideas and no one playing the role of the facilitator by taking the group in the right direction and in right thinking.
One way of addressing this is by NGOs and school teachers. There are so many NGOs working for the children education and with the adolescents groups (Boys and Girls). They have a very important role to play the role of a facilitator by conducting discussions and debates among the groups and bring out the hidden thoughts in them, but it has to be done in a very facilitative and in a constructive manner. We need to encourage such kind of discussion, where the brain starts thinking and brings out the new aspirations and innovativeness among youth. . They need platform and we need to give it to them, for example in a village bring out interested youth and have a debate on some topics and then when the group is ready try to have a group discussion with the neighboring village and in the same way try to have a discussion at the panchayat level and then a inter panchayat level discussion and then at the block level. The same thing can be done at the school and the college level also.
