02/04-12   -   Press releases

India Youth Forum 2012: dreams to be transmitted into reality

Youth Time International Movement, Eurasian Foundation and World Public Forum “Dialogue of civilizations" are happy to announce that India Youth Forum 2012 successfully ended its work on 31 March.

The Forum brought together 72 young participants from 34 countries. The India Youth Forum was held on 29-31 March in New Delhi on the base the Jawaharlal Nehru University and the Park Hotel New Delhi. The inaugural ceremony was graced by Sam Pitroda, Advisor to PM, India on Public Information Infrastructure & Innovations and Dr. Vladimir Yakunin, co-founding President of the World Public Forum “Dialogue of Civilizations".

The first working session introduced to the participants the procedure at the five roundtables, which topics were considered to represent five basement problem elements of the modern society: ‘Education’, ‘Environment’, ‘Social media", ‘Active participation in public life’ and ‘Young family and its values’. Participants were asked to choose the particular working group on the stage of application. To ensure the constructive and efficient work, the roundtables were headed by two moderators and experts whose specialization was related to the topic.

The participants should have prepared the reports at the panels in the form of the presentation. They had the opportunity to supplement their presentation with the videos or photos that they could make during the guided tour through New Delhi on 29th March.

The main outcome of the first working day was to go through all reports and to detect the tendencies and questions common for all problem areas outlined in the presentations. As homework the participants got the task to describe their ideal world in 5 sentences related to the particular topic of the discussion. This has served as an impulse for the game “Futuroobraz" that has opened the floor for the interactions inside the groups with the purpose to seek the solutions for the identified problems and to elaborate the first steps towards the creation of the “country and society of my dreams". As a final result the groups had to work out the key notions and the requirements for the implementation of the ideal scenarios for the areas they have been working on and to develop the understanding of common links and the notions that all 5 panel topics had in common. As a result, at the end of the working day the participants were able to build a symbolic puzzle consisted of 5 different pieces visualizing the interlink character of the diverse globalized society and the complexity of the problem issues inside it.

At the closing ceremony each group had the opportunity to present the results of their work and to share the most important findings and recommendation:
“Public life – any action aiming at positive transformation of society. Ideal society grants the people with the sense of absolute dignity, peace and harmony to live in freedom"; “Education – a process of learning the values based on humanity leading to significant positive change. Education should be free, promote respect for diversity, and use outdoor learning and eco-friendly practices". “Social media – highly interaction platform. These media must be responsible, work as tool for advocacy, be free accessed, credible, independent, non-discriminatory". The main rule of the environmentalists - ask not what the world can do for you ask what you could do for the world" “The biggest young family problems for today– divorce, decline of moral values, effects of abortations. We should develop the ethics of family planning".

As the expert of Social media roundtable Stjepan Lackovic has put it, “I have learned so much in these two days, much more that I could contribute to the discussion. It’s such a great pleasure to be surrounded by the smart and creative young people who have the energy to change the world."
Dr. Vladimir Yakunin commented at the closing ceremony: “I don’t want you to think that you special. You are just normal active people, who reflect the actual trends, thoughts and values. Consider yourself to be a part of huge generation. The politicians should do what you wish. It’s your time and your life. Please take your life into your hands, transmit the ideal image into reality and be happy – that’s the key to everything".

Prof. Arun Mohanty, Director, Eurasian Foundation, added: “I think that the Youth Time Movement and the events like this have a great future. Please keep the same pace".
The Youth Time Movement representative comments on the Forum’s final results: “This
Forum was very special in terms of the diversity of the countries represented by the participants, their backgrounds. It’s also the first time we have launched the Environment panel, we have never had it before within the framework of our traditional Youth Rhodes Forum. I’m very impressed with the people. We got about 600 applications and had to choose the best of the best. We were trying to keep the balance between the number of Asian and European participants, the relevant experience of work in youth projects and at the non-governmental organization was also taken into consideration".
The partners of the event are Eurasian Foundation, World Public Forum “Dialogue of Civilizations", Siemens and Motor Sich.

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The Youth Time (YT) International Movement - is a noncommercial, nongovernmental, nonpolitical, independent organization founded by the representatives of young people from 11 countries of the world to search for scenarios of common development for the future good life. In the past, Youth Time has organized two youth forums, in 2010 and 2011, on the island of Rhodes in Greece. In total, over 300 young people from 70 different countries participated in these forums. Furthermore, in 2011, they also set up a series of remote projects including an international competition on ´Space and the future of mankind´, which marked the 50th anniversary of the first human flight into outer space. Another remote project was called, ´My dream education´, which enabled the participants to assemble an ideal representation of youth education in different countries.

Web-site: http://indiayouthforum.org/, http://www.youth-time.org/

Contacts for media:
Lyubov Korotetskaya Ekaterina Parshina
Korotetskaya@m-p.ru Parshina@m-p.ru