Bengaluru: VARTALEAP a cross-sectoral coalition that aims to educate and build a strong community focused on the youth of the nation launched a draft declaration as part of the nationwide campaign ‘#GenNationBuilding: Youth Duties and Rights (YDR)’. The process of crowd-creation involved over 100 individuals and organisations, all members of the of vartaLeap Coalition. The campaign that started on 12th August 2020 (International Youth Day) saw the participation of industry experts and sectoral leaders across educational institutions, social, corporate, media, philanthropy and government sectors advocating the need for the right space, context and narrative for youth development.
vartaLeap incubated by industry experts like Ashraf Patel (Social Entrepreneur of the Year India 2020, Co-Founder, Pravah and ComMutiny – The Youth Collective) Sunish Jauhari (President – Vitamin Angels India, Founder – Concern for Road and Pedestrian Safety), Meenu Venkateswaran (Co-Founder, Pravah, ComMutiny – The Youth Collective, Indicult)Arjun Shekhar (Co-Founder, Pravah, ComMutiny – The Youth Collective and Vyaktitva) has been holding numerous intergenerational discourses on the essence of the YDR as a part of the ‘GenNation Building’ campaign.
The coalition members celebrated GenNation Building week beginning on Constitution Day (India) 26th November to 2nd December 2020 by hosting a series of events across various states in the country. The Week witnessed 35+ organisations across the country organising 40+ events celebrating Youth Duties and Rights where 5,00,000+ people were reached through various online platforms. The events saw over 1000 young people and youth engagers from diverse backgrounds revisiting many issues impacting their communities and their own lives in the light of youth duties and rights.
“The world right now is beset with inequality, conflict and environmental issues. Never before have we needed more collaboration and shared leadership with young people to create a better world.”, Ashraf Patel.
Ashraf Patel, recognised as the ‘Social Entrepreneur of the Year 2020’ by the Schwab Foundation and Jubilant Bhartia Foundation for her commitment and consistent investment in youth development (for her work at Pravah and ComMutiny – The Youth Collective) is the co-founder of vartaleap. She is an industry expert with more than two decades of experience in the field of youth development. The recognition for ideating and successfully executing a collaborative youth-centric approach for social action and investment in youth is encouraging for young India. This clearly lauds that, importance of organisations that keep young people at center of nation building and how such spaces are the need of the hour to ensure sustainable change
As the country reels under the impact of COVID-19 and braces for the rollout of the vaccination, a large number of youth volunteers will be needed to ensure that the immunisation process reaches the last mile. And one of the youngest countries on the planet will get through this only when the we stop instrumentalizing youth and do this together with them!
