As India is going to be the youngest country in a few years, youth are the obvious set of citizens who should understand the crisis, history of the problem & evolving solutions towards a resource secure society. While youth are energetic, agile & quick to grasp the situation, they are also quick to criticize due to lack of knowledge of alternatives, process and functioning dynamics of systems involved etc.,
Being critique of the existing system is very easy as long as youth do not account themselves as part of the problem. When one accepts oneself as part of the problem, then being part of the solution happens and is essential. With this in mind, CEC takes initiatives to rope in the youth of the society into the arena of water and food security and the various issues around it. By capitalizing on their enthusiasm and energy, our initiatives work to spread the word on issues and solutions and to create a mass wave of awareness.
The goal of CEC is to reach out to a million people with messages on water conservation, protection of environment, and environmental conservation. To achieve this objective CEC focuses it’s awareness creation efforts and initiatives on the youth of the society and banks on their energy, optimism and enthusiasm to achieve a million steps to Water. Such fresh, optimistic and vibrant young change makers have a definite necessity to be nurtured and incubated
CEC works to engender individual and institutional change in attitudes and hence commitments to open and democratic governance among public officials and stakeholders to ensure improvement in service delivery. The experiments of CEC at effecting this change have managed to breach the accretion of institutional inertia, personal disinterest and apathy, positively impacting service delivery. We believe that the exposure that the officials and communities get of our training programmes (Transformation Behaviour Labs) can transform them as catalysts for change in their new role as barefoot officials.
With this given objective, CEC has initiated several programs in schools, colleges providing the students with information and motivating them to participate in competitions, exhibitions, water campaigns, video shows, water parliament, group discussions, etc. Youth Water Clubs started by CEC mainly focuses on students in colleges to actively take part in the change initiatives required to face the challenges in the water sector so as to secure accessibility to clean water and food.
As a part of this program designed for school children, students from various villages were motivated to participate in the water conservation activities in their living environment both in school and at home. It was proposed to conduct awareness programs in a minimum of 8 schools in each district, covering 12 districts. The program was conducted in different schools in many districts under the leadership of the District chapters of CEC.
Water awareness programs were conducted in other schools thereby creating awareness among 40,000 to 50,000 students and 1000 teachers. Few students were identified during the program for creating a water club in the school.
This initiative started by CEC mainly focuses student fraternity where the college students are motivated to actively take part in the change initiatives required to face the challenges in the water sector so as to secure accessibility to clean water and food. Awareness Programs were conducted in various colleges and Youth Water clubs have been formed in select colleges in the city during this year.
The Centre of Excellence for Change launched an Awareness Advert Video and Short Documentary Competition – “WATER COMMONS – FLICK FEST ‘12” on Water Scarcity and Conservation and related awareness issues. The purpose of this competition was to provide a global platform to showcase the voice of the Indian youth enabling them to help spread awareness on water scarcity, its critical situation and how it affects fellow humans who die for water. From amateur film makers and students to professionals, every youth was invited to be a part of this innovative video making competition.
CEC’s main aim of conducting this competition was to create a sense of awareness on water scarcity and conservation among the youth by providing them a platform to showcase their talents and giving them an opportunity to help us spread water awareness. By encouraging them to participate in this event, we motivated them to think about water issues, learn more about the current state of water, the risks and adverse effects of water scarcity, sufferings of fellow human beings, ways to conserve and not waste water, etc.
The Flick Fest team received an estimable 130 entries as a response to the announcement of the competition. By the submission deadline, the team received 65 video entries (34 videos in the 1 minute category & 31 videos in 5 minute category).
Various rounds of short listing of the video entries were done by the members of the Centre of Excellence for Change (CEC) and 10 top videos in the documentary category (5 minutes) and 10 top videos in the innovative awareness video category (1 minute) were shortlisted. These shortlisted videos were evaluated by a jury consisting of Mr. Bala Kailasam, Film Producer-Director, Mr. Paul Prokop, Vice Consul, US Consulate General in Chennai and Mr. Raja, Film Cinematographer (Sakkarakatti, Sidhu +2, etc.). The prizes were distributed by the legendary film director Shri. K. Balachander in Chennai.
An international coloquium on ‘Youth W.E.S Leadership ‘was designed and organised by Centre of Excellence for Change (CEC) , Chennai with IIT-Madras, to identify and engender the youth who are leaders of tomorrow ,to strive for a water secure future. These young change agents have the potential, zeal and power to address the W.E.S crisis and find solutions for this paradigm shift.
The colloquium emphasized the need for the Generation Next to be educated and empowered to implement this triad (W.E.S )and safeguard against domestic, agriculture and industrial pollution and transform the Youth as guardians of local resources who can unleash a virtuous cycle of responsibility and accountability towards restoring ecosystems. Nearly 100 students from various Engineering and Social Sciences Colleges from across India participated in the Colloquium. The students had an opportunity to interact with eminent speakers from IIT, Madras, IIM, MSSRF, Anna University, NIOT, MIDS, The Hindu, etc, on both technical and social aspects of W.E.S issues, solutions and innovations.
The inspiring speech by the guests left behind a strong message that only if the youth rise and act immediately, water and food can never be out of fashion for the next generation!