India is currently witnessing a demographic explosion with 543 million people below the age 35 years.  At the same time, there is an information explosion with the advent of communication technology, which has drastically reduced the knowledge gap between adults and young people.  While policy makers (government, corporate and civil society) have taken the demographic advantage into account, they have not wholly acknowledged the huge leap in access to information young people have that have shaped their thinking, needs, aspirations and their very being. Young people are far more opinionated, empowered, evaluative, and aspirational. At the same time young people are also confronted by a diversity of narratives on ideology, identity, social issues through which they have to navigate to find their own sense of purpose and belonging, creating for them a new and every changing symbolic environment that they have to grapple with.

Often, as policy makers and practitioners when we build youth engaging strategies, we limit ourselves to viewing young people as assets, consumers, and workers to be invested in to harvest an economic dividend.  Instead, if we were to consider the tectonic shift in the psychological development of young people brought on by the new symbolic environment, we might move our strategies from reaping the demographic dividend to sowing the demographic multiplier. That is by creating conditions and spaces where the young can multiply their own potential. This subtle but important difference brings out the need for policy and practice to foreground agency, ownership and co-leading with, for and by young people towards social renewal. By this linking of self to society, Gandhi fuelled the youth movement that gave us our independence.

Over the years, youth participation has dwindled again, though we are the youngest nation in the world, young people are not proportionately represented either in government, politics, civil society or corporate or media spheres. While we have grown in GDP terms, we still have several social milestones to cover including enhancing our performance on the many unfulfilled SDG targets as also on HDI and the Freedom Index. Imagine if this gigantic cohort of young people take on a shared leadership (like in the independence movement) for social renewal to address issues of inequality, discrimination and ecological conflict.

Imagine if we could nourish the power of the natural “identity-quest” of young people, and enable each young person to discover how inextricably their well-being is linked to that of the community around them. How can this be accomplished? Through co-holding spaces with young people that promote wholesome, congruent, and flexible action within the constitutional framework and values of justice, equality, liberty and fraternity, which in turn builds young peoples’ capacities to assert their rights as well as perform their duties and get others to do the same and in the process realize their own full potential and that of societies. For this to happen on a large scale, we need to adopt a new youth- centric norm of Every Youth a Jagrik and Every Space Nurturing Jagriks.

The vartaLeap Coalition is a cross-sectoral, collaborative space for co-learning with a vast combined experience that is taking this discourse forward at scale with soul, which we call ‘scoul’ to move youth-centric development from the margins and make it a new norm in every space that young people occupy or that impacts young people

 

We, the members of VartaLeap Coalition, have come together with the belief and faith that,
Every young person has the potential to be a Jagrik (Jagruk Nagrik) and every space can nurture Jagriks who in turn will co-create and nurture new spaces in an ever-evolving circle of learning and leadership

In who we are and all that we do, we will ensure that we,
Embody Love for ourselves and for others,
Ensure Freedom and Equity for everyone,
Practice Justice and Ecological integrity for ourselves and everyone.
Celebrate Friendship and Inclusion of all identities and Empathy for all thoughts and perspectives,
Bring Creativity and Fun in what we do and experiences we co-create,
Be Authentic in our thoughts and action,
Collaborate in our approach.

We, individually and collectively, commit to ourselves to stand together, as a coalition, to give ourselves and others the strength of being among believers and seekers of the shared positive power in the learning and leadership of young people.
 

The core principles of VartaLeap Coalition enable all members to identify and co-create widely adaptable products, experiences, and programs on youth leadership. This FLOWING protocol listed as follows also enables an ecosystem of practitioners to emerge rather than standalone initiatives.
 

F: Feelings of youth must be honored
We respect what you feel and commit to not bring judgment (even if these feelings do not fit into a rational and logical framework of a person/ community) because we believe that thoughts and actions are rooted in feelings.
L: Leading together with adults
We commit to co-leadership and co-creation as critical elements for facilitating ownership and stakes for everyone.
O: Ownership of self to society
We acknowledge that ‘self’ is placed in the context of ‘society’’ with both influencing each other enabling a dynamic spiral of
systems transformation.
W: Willingness to take risks
We encourage coming out of the comfort zone and embrace risks with acknowledgment and recognition to nurture the creativity and potential of leaders, organizations, and institutions. We implore everyone to not be deterred by the risk of failure but to celebrate the joy of co-learning.
I: Inclusion for all
We commit to inclusion for all identities based upon social, cultural, faith, gender, sexual orientation, ability, and disability,
thoughts and choice, belief, and all other kinds of possible diversity.
N: Now is as important as the future
We acknowledge that the ‘now’ of today, is the history of tomorrow and the pathway of the future.
G: Grounded in learning through action and Reflection (Refl-action)
We acknowledge the cyclic nature of action and reflection and commit to this intrinsically iterative character of co-learning and co-creation.