“After one year into this fellowship program, I think my social understanding/background has improved! I have become aware of several social issues and their impacts. I now feel that I know my position better in society.”
–Kabil Malhotra, Youth-n-Democracy Fellow, 2020-21
It was Kabil’s mother who suggested he join PRIA’s Youth-n-Democracy (YnD) Fellowship program. A comprehensive course that allowed him to have community engagement experience, participate in various activities, and initiate his social action project, made Kabil excited and interested to apply for the program. It was the first time that he was doing a fellowship program with an NGO.
Kabil is pursuing a Bachelor's in Pharmacy from the Jamia Hamdard University, Delhi, and for him, this fellowship was an opportunity to do his bit for society. A year later, he proudly says that the fellowship helped him gain a lot of knowledge and information around various societal issues and systems.
In it two years, PRIA’s YnD fellowship program has set different fellows on different journeys of change—for some, it has been a journey of learning about and becoming comfortable with themselves; for others, it's learning about PRIA's unique participatory research methodology; still others say it has been about being able to implement a social action project. However, for Kabil, it was to understand his position in society from the lens of others.
"I now feel that I know how others see me, and how I present myself to them. For example, when I introspect on my position among my colleagues, among my friends, I get to know about my standing in society."
The various conversations he had with the community, his cousins, peers, and family members has helped him learn and understand his role in society and the different roles he can play to support others. As a result, he has learnt to practice democracy in his everyday life!
During the fellowship program, Kabil got to know about his strengths and weaknesses. He realised that he had certain biases and preferences toward people and things. He became aware that he was unable to socialise with others and immediately formed judgments based on their personalities. The various sessions in the Fellowship program made him understand and become comfortable with the idea of diversity—of people, opinions, and personalities.
"The sessions helped me to know about different kinds of people, to have respect for who they are, and also learn how different situations demand different kind of reactions."
The third and final module under the fellowship program allows fellows to design and develop a Social Action Project on any issue of their choosing. For Kabil, it was the issue of Drug Abuse.
"When I joined my university, one thing that I noticed was that there was a thela (cart) outside my university, and they were a lot college student that used to go there for smoking. I also observed liquor bottles lying there now and then. Coming from a medical background, I was curious about why people are doing this, and that is why I chose this topic."
To make his project participatory, he started interacting with various stakeholders. After learning about the issue of Drug Abuse by interacting with his friends, classmates, parents, and cousins, he learned about the multiple reasons that push an individual into the consumption of drugs. "People usually have a perception, that people involved in drug abuse are bad and are committing a crime. However, using and abusing substances is a result of multiple reasons and unfavorable circumstances because of which they have been oriented towards it – family reasons, financial conditions, employments, which might have caused depressions."
Kabil, through his research, wants to help others in understanding these multiple perspectives and design comforting support strategies for people affected by drug abuse.
One learning from the fellowship program that Kabil wishes to take forward for making his family and community more democratic, equitable, just, and respectful is to give respect to other people’s views. "In a democracy, it is important to include every voice, and that is why I will encourage others to speak out and share their views be respected. Involving everyone/every voice before a decision is being taken."