International Year of Youth: A commemoration

Whilst researching some stats on the The World Bank's website I came across this article entitled 'How is Youth Empowerment Promoting Rural Development?' in India. It is summary of projects supported by the World Bank to commemorate the International Year of Youth (which comes to an end today). It features programmes in the states of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh:

http://www.worldbank.org.in/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/SOUTHASIAEXT/INDIAEXTN/0,,contentMDK:22979683~pagePK:141137~piPK:141127~theSitePK:295584,00.html

Just for anyone that might be interested in other youth empowerment initiatives in India.

I am not a teacher, but we are all educators

I arrived in India over a week ago, and I’m going to be volunteering over the next 5 months with a development agency called BREADS – Bangalore Rural Education and Development Society. A multi-faceted opportunity for me to:

1. gain invaluable experience of how education development programmes operate in South India


2. to gain an insight to and participate in a Salesian approach to outreach and living


3. to live in the same country as most of my (extended) family – the closest (geographically) I’ve ever been to them


4. to explore the ethnic side of my own identity. There is probably a lot more to add to this list in the future, but for now, this is what comes to mind.
   

I will be coordinating a project over the next two months (starting next week) that aims to enhance the employability of young people who have been through vocational education/training at various Don Bosco institutes in Karnataka and Kerala. As stated above, I am not a 'teacher', I don't have a teaching qualification and don't claim to, and when I took this on this placement it was something that intimidated me at first. However, I do believe that just as we are all learners, we are all ‘teachers’ in some sense. I like to say that we are all educators! I am basing my ability to deliver this on the skills I have developed through my own experiential learning, and the fact that I believe in others being experiential learners too!
I seem to have settled quite comfortably into life in Bangalore – it probably helps that I’ve visited the place a few times before and that I have family living only a 10 minute walk away! But this is the first time I’ve been independent in India, which is forcing me to step out of my comfort zone - interacting with and embracing the culture without the shelter of family (but taking refuge in the fact that they are close by if I need them).

Some new things I have learned/experienced so far:

• BREADS, Bangalore rural education and development society, an NGO based in Bangalore that aims to promote sustainable development to alleviate poverty in the southern states of Karnataka and Kerala. They work in partnership (there’s that word I love!) with Don Bosco Development Offices throughout these states, to address the causes of poverty and seek out sustainable solutions at a grassroots level (that’s my quota of development jargon met!). It is truly fascinating learning about the projects that BREADS is currently running – spanning from rehabilitating ex-child labourers to training counselors and teachers in rural communities – it is evident that there is a genuine passion for education, empowerment and development at the heart of it all.
  I am looking forward to gaining a deeper insight into some specific projects in the future.

On a non-development note:

• Food – steamed banana, Jack Fruit raw and steamed, Hyderabadi biriyani, ‘breadfruit’ curry, “jeer” (see next post for more on this)


• Traffic in Bangalore city - always look ALL directions when walking on roads


• Indian politics – I am taking my time to get my head around this, more thoughts on this later, but for now it seems like there is people’s movement standing up against corruption…waiting to see how this unfolds in the run-up to Independence Day.
  
  That is all for now.
  

On a side note, this blog will get ‘prettier’ when I start to get photos/videos uploaded, so you’ll have to bear with the minimalist ‘no-frills’ approach for now. Enjoy ‘living simply’!

Behind the title

I felt that this probably needed a bit of explaining, so here it is...

For those of you that know me, you’ll know that I quite often describe myself as this.
Everybody gets asked the question ‘Where are you from?’ and for some time it was the question I always dreaded. Where am I from?

It was always going to be a tedious answer for me. I went through phases of answering this question with questions ‘How long have you got?’ ‘Do you want the long or short version?’

Then I went through a phase of answering it with ‘I’m ethnically confused’ - finding it difficult to place myself within mixture of cultures I had lived in.

One day I answered this question with my usual ethnic confusion and someone took a few moments enquire about my “identity crisis”. After giving this person my long drawn-out life story (at the age of 21), he turned around and said to me ‘not confused…enriched’. From that epiphanic moment I never went back to ethnic confusion, but relished the notion of being ‘Ethnically Enriched’.

So how did this fascination with global citizenship come about? I spent a year volunteering with a development agency and started to realise just how much our actions impact on those all over the world. The one thing that really stuck with me from that year was ‘Global Partnerships’.

Global – denoting of the world
Partnership – a relationship (more than one stakeholder)

Seeing countries work in this way to promote development – shared experiences conveyed in different cultural settings – made me realise that people really aren’t ‘worlds apart’. Human beings still have similar ideals of ultimately wanting to live in basic comfort and happiness. We can (and do) work together to achieve common goals (with tangible results – international development).

Nurturing any relationship requires all parties to play a (dare I say equal...) part.

Bear with me, we’re nearly there... let me come back to my global identity. As a citizen who has already experienced so much of the world (formed a relationship with all it has to offer), through living in and visiting places, meeting people, through my own family tree and even through the ever-growing global consumer market, I have decided it’s my social (global) responsibility to try and give something back .

So if you ask me, “Where are you from?”
I would say “I am a global citizen” and I am lucky enough to belong to many parts of the world.