Mumbai Youth Initiative (2007)
When we began work on the Mumbai Youth Initiative we were excited because it was exactly the target group that we felt was ready and ripe to be at the centre of a transforming and growing city. But through the process of this project we have realized that MYI not only connects with a local need and opportunity but a global focus on youth- and for a very pragmatic reason.
This is the time when most newly thriving economies in the world and those aspiring to get there, like countries from South Asia , Erstwhile Soviet Nations and Latin America have to address critical societal issues of education, health, environment and poverty through building an economy that integrates all the sections of society. On the other hand these are also countries where a large percentage of the population is or will be the youth. Therefore the vision of these countries for the future, the investment they make, policies adopted, their success or failure, and the experiments they conduct, has implications on how the youth of these countries will be guided in their choices of education, profession, relationships and how they will be affected by the politics, world view, environment and disease among other things.
Also this is the group that has most productive years ahead of them to develop their capacities, adopt new and emerging ideas and adapt to them, greedily explore every opportunity that comes their way and lap up second chances and not be plagued by cynicism.
In the above light, any project that endeavours to involve and engage the youth in local governance, civic participation and a dialogue with elected representatives and decision makers has a responsibility to understand and emphasize this larger picture and translate it into doable activities with clarity of outcome and purpose.
Praja Foundation with support from the World Bank embarked on the Mumbai Youth Initiative (MYI) Project in 2007. Praja Foundation is a non-partisan, voluntary organization whose aim is to empower citizens and the government with knowledge, information and facts. We are committed to the re-establishment of accountability and transparency in public governance through people's participation.
The objective of MYI is to create a platform for a series of consultations with the youth (aged between 16-30) to understand their aspirations from the city of Mumbai in terms of better lifestyle and their needs and issues which should reflect in the planning of the city. It is this group which will face the challenges and battle the problems of the future; utilize, contribute and create resources. Their feedback will be communicated to the agencies that are responsible to develop the city plan. This project is relevant in the context of recent plans to overhaul the physical and social infrastructure of the city, with a lot of financial resource being pledged for the same.
Our outreach programmes, have connected with close to 300 youth all over the city, from diverse economic and social backgrounds. But the responsibility ahead is daunting for the MYI team and other individuals, who believe that the youth must be provided the opportunity to learn the value of participating in the community and that a receptive, supportive and democratic space has to be built for them.
Detailed Report (Word Document)