Youth Empowerment Workshop for Youths living in Settlements

Background

Human existence has a variation of differences. These disagreements lead to an omnipresence of conflict which has been visible throughout history within an individual, in society and among nations. Being refugees we are more inclined to be in conflict within the community as well as conflicts with the host community and this is specially so in the case of young people. The youth are more vulnerable and often are a cause of most of the inter-communal conflicts. These youngsters are then looked upon as irresponsible and offensive and are generally rejected by its own community. However, they are not given adequate opportunities to prove themselves as capable of doing constructive work. Our Youth Empowerment Workshops in settlements intend to empower these youth to deal with such situations. While planning such workshops we consider it an important priority to make the youth understand the concept of non-violence and to inculcate the notion of its benefits so that they would have the potential to manage conflicts and contribute in preventing fights or quarrel among friends, neighbours etc in their community. We believe that being equipped with the skills of basic conflict resolution, understanding of nonviolent methodologies and communication and listening skills this would be achievable. These workshops also focus on the abilities of the younger generation and encourage them to take up active roles and responsibilities in the exiled Tibetan infrastructure. Therefore we focus on promoting democratic knowledge, dialogue, leadership and conflict resolution skills in these youths.

Aims

To introduce the skills of Conflict Resolution to the youth living in the Tibetan settlements who are mostly unemployed and promote non-violent management of conflicts. To empower these youth to take up leadership roles and responsibilities in the Tibetan community.

Experiences

In the beginning of 2006 we organised two residential workshops for youth in the settlements, one in Darjeeling in the North Eastern region of India and one in Bangalore for the South Indian settlements. These workshops were highly successful and the need for more such programmes to empower the youth in the settlements was strongly felt.

We were later invited by the Department of Home of the Central Tibetan Administration to organise YEW at the Institute for Small Trade Learning (ISTL) Nelamangala. These youth were mostly school drop-outs and from different settlements and were pursuing various courses. Having such young people gathered in one place was a very favourable situation since it served our purpose of working with youth in the settlements. Therefore in December 2006 we organised three simultaneous workshops at ISTL with more than thirty young participants in each workshop. This workshop series was greatly appreciated by the Administrator and staff of the Institute and the students themselves. We later received a feedback note from the Administrator stating a marked difference in the way the young men and women were communicating and behaving with each other in a more respectful and responsible way. The Department of Home of the CTA and the ISTL have requested us to conduct workshops at ISTL twice every year for each new batch of students they would have and we have been continuing with the workshops till date.

Achievements:

TCCR believes that with a little encouragement and many more opportunities to learn, these youth have an immense capability to become contributing members of the society, recognise their potentials and become future leaders. Our workshop tries to create an understanding among the young participants and it is completely gratifying to see the marked improvement in the progress that they make, be it in discussions or speaking out their minds and most importantly the attentiveness with which they listen to each other. We notice a raised energy level, which leads them into discussing what they can do in the future to increase awareness and involvement among other young people like themselves. We can confidently say that the youth empowerment workshop is able to motivate the youth in becoming more active members of the society.

This is just the beginning. We hope to work more at length with many young people and empower them to deal with personal or group conflicts and let them realize their own worth and enable them to live in society with honour and pride. We just need to show them the light and they will pave their own way to success and glory.

Success story:

The excellent accomplishment of the workshops that TCCR has provided till date is a mirror of our success. This we believe is an achievement in terms of the number of youth we have been able to reach out to in the past few years and many more that we will be associating with and empowering in the years to come. We feel honoured and privileged that these workshops have proved useful in creating a more harmonious environment and encouraging the youth to take their studies of various skills more seriously and becoming more responsible, making a difference in the lives of many.