Being The Difference

Young minds nurtured their creative quotient and provided solutions for problems of the society at Young Change Makers Conference held earlier this year.

Young minds nurtured their creative quotient and provided solutions for problems of the society at Young Change Makers Conference held earlier this year. It was a three-day brain storming session. Students from Stds VII – IX of different city schools donned their thinking caps and came up with unique ideas to curb several civic and environmental evils. The next conference,scheduled for January 27-29,will have over 1200 participants from schools in and around the city.

We provide a platform for the students to explore several areas without the assistance of internet and in-depth research. It is an effort to dismiss the myth that young minds are disconnected from society and its issues at large, says Parag Mankeekar,the man behind YCM 2.0/2012. Last year’s conference ended with campaigns against littering roads and spitting in public. It promoted computer games which make children aware of garbage segregation and also encouraged the saving of paper by avoiding the use of brown papers to cover school books. “Several schools adopted the research results, Mankeekar adds.

This year’s conference will cover broad themes like environment,civic and social issues. Each school will be represented by a team of six including a teacher and will be provided with a sub-topic. A research presentation by three students of the team will display the facts and findings. Mentors from the concerned fields will assist them in ground level research,field work and gathering of data.

At the day-long ‘Knowledge Mela’,students will explain their areas of research to the community at large. This will help them reach out to 30,000 people in a single day, Mankeekar adds. The participants will also prove their research findings through street plays at several locations. Dr Vijaya Date,who was a mentor at the previous conference,says,The challenges are tougher this time. We will try and evaluate the schools on their year-round involvement,in-depth research and the role of the school authorities in putting their research topic to practice, she adds.

YCM 2.0/2012 will also have individual competitions where students can team up with teachers,parents and grandparents. There will be a short film contest. The winning films will be screened at a film festival in New Zealand,” says Mankeekar. A photography contest and gaming contest are also on the agenda. The efforts of the participants will be acknowledged with prizes like game development courses,short film making and photography guidance.

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