Do all young people think the same? Global Expressions

On 28^th February 2020, PRIA Youth conducted a workshop with 20 college students from three universities: James Madison College (JMC), Michigan State University, USA, TERI School of Advanced Studies, New Delhi, India and Delhi University, India. These diverse groups of students represented several countries including the United States, Belize, Kenya, Zambia, Cameroon, and India.

The students from JMC are part of the Madison Diversity Leadership Fellowship Programme. Students under this program are provided with a part-time internship with an appropriate local organisation. The students from India are part of the Youth-n-Democracy Fellowship programme being conducted by PRIA Youth in Delhi.

As part of the session, PRIA Youth presented insights from its flagship initiative: Youth-n-Democracy Fellowship ((To know more: https://www.pria.org/projectsdetails-youth-n-democracy-30-556) and Beyond Running and Chasing programme (To know more: https://www.pria.org/projectsdetails-beyond-running-and-chasing-30-584). A part of the session was also dedicated to a focus group discussion through deliberative polling. An anonymous poll was organized for the group around the issues of hate speech, social media and polarization, campus diversity and affirmative action, and populism. It was interesting to see how young people from different parts of the world had extremely different experiences and points of views.

After the polling, students were divided into groups and were asked to share their standpoints and experiences. Different groups discussed and presented the understanding, concerns, and issues of young people of their respective regions.

“We have to mention our caste and religion in all the application forms. I want to put a point of how the concept and idea of identity in itself is not in the vacuum and is also institutionally being subscribed in a way”, was expressed by an Indian student.

“We should re-explore and understand the different biases which people have e.g. being color blind. It’s the term which is used in the USA that, people don’t care if you’re white or black. I feel this very problematic because this brings everyone on the same level, which is not the case in reality. It is promoting homogeneity but is also refusing people’s culture, backgrounds and experiences”, reflects a student from JMC.

It was evident that these issues were impacting young people globally in different ways. These conversations re-asserted the need and demand of young people for safe spaces in their countries to be able to have meaningful conversation around the practice of democracy in their everyday lives.