Completing 8 years of Youth Alliance and Annual Alumni Meet

Contributor: Shashank

Last month we celebrated the 8 years of Youth Alliance’s being - we always feel the only way to celebrate it is to bring together alumni who really represent the essence of our work, hence the Annual Alumni Meet. 

Through the 3 day meet we travelled through Self, Community to the System. We were joined by over 60 alumni through the 3 days coming from Punjab, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Delhi among other places. Close to 100 friends, parents, supporters also joined us on the celebratory event of 18th August. Here are the things that stood out to me:

Co-creation 

From decor in the to the gifts to the alumni or mentors - everything in the alumni meet was co-created and made by hand. It was a work of HeArt. Not only that the design of the meet was enabling alumni-led sessions for alumni. The daily team check-in circles were open to all alumni too - creating a feeling of co-ownership and creativity. 

Need for Community is huge

When Tarini mentioned right in the first circle, that ‘I have come back to Youth Alliance after a year - its like a base for me. I come back to the family of mine to venture out again in the world’. Youth Alliance has been a safe space for young people to be themselves, to reconnect with their authentic self and their purpose. As the world gets more and more integrated, as technology indoctrinate all aspects of our life, the need for a space where one can connect with humans as humans can’t be more. We are grateful to all who c-create such spaces with us.

“I realized the real meaning of connection and community through YA. How a connection is not about a network of people, but the ability to engage in an authentic dialogue and hold each other” shared Kashish, an alumni runs a social enterprise called Pachakosha promoting environment friendly beauty products with non-plastic packaging.

Immersion that create self knowledge

We are grateful that Mr. P. Sainath came to be part of the meet- he shared ‘the most important work today is self-education and being conscious of the information we consume.’ It was a great reinforcement from Sainath for the immersion programs (Gramya Manthan and Earth Shastra) that we do with young people to educate themselves differently. Sainath also spoke about important of local wisdom traditions in addressing the climate crises particularly. 

Ripples

As we began the 8th year celebration event, we had alumni showcasing and sharing about their work. Some of them that stood out to me are:

Over the last 3 years 5 young people from the village called Jhutawad in Ujjain district of Madhya Pradesh. Slowly they have been able to create Aaina Dekho, an immersive leadership program inspired by Gramya Manthan co-held by YA alumni. They run an organisation called Mera Gaon mere Duniya that works on education of children and youth. 

Divyangana has been co-creating Slow School which is a platform of journeys of inner transformation. Anuapama in her work with The Gender Lab - has been enabling several thousands girls to find their voice and agency.

We concluded the 8 year celebration with Dastaan-e-Tamanna-e-Kakori illustrating friendship of Ram Prasad Bismil and Ashfaqullah Khan across religious identities and how it is friendships like these that bring about transformation in the world. We hope we continue to nourish higher purpose friendship in the service of the world. Our hope is that this community of young people continue to create impact that is deep in different parts of the country across different themes while being in the process of inner transformation. 

We are grateful to the 150 people including friends, parents, alumni and team of alumni that showed up to celebrate with us and many many others who have been with us in spirits.