Youth-n-Democracy Goes to Korea!

The Asia Democracy Network (ADN) and Innovation for Change – East Asia (I4C), supported by the May 18th Memorial Foundation and the Gwangju Human Rights and Peace Foundation, organised a week-long forum in South Korea for democracy activists in May. 54 democracy activists (approximately 13 of whom belong to what can be called older generations) from 23 Asian countries to participate in the first-ever ‘Asia Youth Leadership Forum for Democracy 2018’, held in Seoul and Gwangju between May 13 and May 20. The timing is symbolic: 2018 marks the 30th anniversary of the June Democracy Uprising and the 37th anniversary of the Gwangju Democracy Uprising, both of which were seminal events in the road to the establishment of democracy in South Korea.



The week’s activities were conceptualised with the intention of providing youth activists of Asia a space to openly discuss the state and future of democracy in the region, to gain awareness, perspective and ideas from the movements, campaigns and civil society efforts that have been witnessed across south, southeast and east Asia in recent times. It was thought equally important, however, for the youth to learn from previous generations about the history of peoples’ struggles for democracy in various countries.

PRIA was invited to send a representative to the forum to talk about the Youth N Democracy (YnD) campaign launched in the first two weeks of February 2017. PRIA’s presentation focused on three areas: India’s demographic dividend, the status of higher education, and the YnD campaign. Broadly, the discussion around YnD related to youth perspective on democracy and movements, strategies that are being applied in the YnD campaign, and challenges in sustaining the initiative.