Workshop at Commonwealth Futures: Inspiring Global Citizens

On the 10th of February 2020, PRIA Youth conducted a session with 28 student leaders representing 14 commonwealth countries at the OP Jindal Global University (JGU) in India. These students are a part of the Commonwealth Futures programme driven by The Association of Commonwealth Universities in partnership with the British Council, which provides young student leaders from across the globe a platform to reflect on global challenges in different cultural contexts and build social cohesion within their communities and beyond.

Young student leaders coming from diverse countries and academic backgrounds explored the theme of Gandhi and Participatory Democracy during the session led by PRIA Youth. The PRIA Youth team created a safe space to enable the conversations, thus ensuring that the student leaders were able to discuss the global challenges, issues, and experiences pertaining to youth. 

The session then moved on to the question of why it was important for young people to raise their voices, and how PRIA Youth has been enabling such conversations. The interactive participatory dialogue highlighted some of the very significant Gandhian principles and values and how they were still relevant in today’s context. Students reflected on the three concepts of satyagraha (truth-force), swaraj (self-rule) and sarvodaya (upliftment of all), which for Gandhi not only represented "theoretical frameworks" but also "methods of struggle". They appear in Gandhian philosophy as the pillars of what Gandhi understood by a "true civilization”. 

The session included learning and understanding different experiences and issues faced by young people from diverse countries. Themes such as hate speech, diversity, peace, affirmative action and democracy were discussed through deliberative polling. The last leg of the session helped the students ponder upon Gandhi’s idea of participatory democracy and how these students can apply them within their current socio-political scenarios.

Follow our journey on @pria_youth (Instagram) and pria_youth (Facebook) for some exciting updates.