LMAD Baramati Youth Conference - 2017

 

Baramati Youth Conference 25th - 27th December, 2017

The BYC team inaugurated its 6th Baramati Youth Conference on December 25th, 2017. A total of 146 students across colleges in Baramati attended the conference. The local Team under the guidance of Nisreen Baramatiwala & Karan Khalate had reached students by campaigning in their colleges. All the participants arrived at Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Baramati at 3.00pm to register for the conference and then they all gathered in the Auditorium for the opening ceremony. It was a 3 days residential program organized at Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Baramati.

DAY 1

The inauguration began with National Anthem and then the lighting of the lamp by the invited guest including Dr. Shakir Ali Sayyed (senior scientist and head of KVK Baramati), Mr. Vaibhav Phadtare (Chairperson of Chaitanya Academy Baramati), Ms. Aarti Mirokhe (Former participant of BYC and a successful Archer at National level) Mr. Dyaneshwar Raite (Media Representative of Sakal newspaper, Baramati). Nisreen and Karan who are a part of the coordinating team welcomed all the participants for the Baramati Youth Conference. They also highlighted how the conference in the past had a positive impact on the youth of Baramati and also youth across the country

The invited guests were asked to address the participants. Dr. Shakir Ali Sayyed who is a senior scientist told students about Krishi Vigyan Kendra and how they can make career in agriculture. Mr.Vaibhav Phadtare gave a brief about his work and how everyone helped him in growing. Miss Aarti Mirokhe spoke about how she worked on her skills and how Let's Make A Difference helped her achieve success in her career as an Archer.

After tea break, a brief about the flow of the conference and detailed information about the fees and how the fee is utilized was conveyed to the participant. The participants were asked about their expectations from the conference? Few who raised their hands had a common expectation that was Personality Development and Career Clarity. Karan also added, “In order to change the world you have to change yourself first”. The local coordinating team was introduced to the participants. The conveyor of the Conference Mr. Viral Mazumdar introduced the other volunteers from the National Youth Team. The coordinating team plays an important role in organizing a conference and each volunteer has her/his unique story of change that combined together creates a greater impact towards the participants.

After that, Do’s and Don’ts were conveyed to the participants that will help to maintain discipline in the conference. Participants were told about the importance of sharing and how important it is to participate. Kshitij Patil part of coordinating team shared his story on how his life was before and after Let's Make A Difference.

After dinner, participants were asked to choose a common topic on which discussion could be held. Participants actively participated by sharing their topic of concern which were Depression, Decision making, Confidence, Over-thinking, Negativity, Peer pressure, Time management, Addictions, Being selfish and Loneliness. Participants were from rural background, and they were being educated on the difference between village life and city life and the reason for hindrance in growth of the rural youth were due poor English, lack of motivation and presentation skills. This session was concluded on a high note after which the first group discussion in smaller groups took place. In the GD the participants were asked to introduce themselves to get familiar with each other. Along with getting to know each other, they also shared on their views about the highlighted issues raised during discussion with the larger group. Once the GD got concluded all the participants moved back to their rooms to end the day 1 session.

DAY 2

Morning session started with a prayer. Participants were introduced to Quiet time with help of PPT and then the four standards of Initiative of Change [ Purity, Honesty, Unselfishness, Love] were introduced to them with examples to enable better understanding. The importance of discipline in life was also discussed. The participants were given a dairy and asked to move out in the open to observe their quiet time.

An image captured while participants were doing their first quiet time and writing their thoughts.

The session post breakfast was started with the song “Kaun hai zimmedar”. Participants were introduced to Let's Make A Difference diary and its importance while following Quiet Time. Then the participants were asked to share their first quiet time experience. Each participant came up to the dais one by one to share their thoughts with the larger audience.

Some of the sharing was: Pratiksha shared that she had a group of 3 friends and how she used to get angry because of lesser importance in that group which affected her marks and she said she feels guilty and want to say sorry to her friends. Then another participant Akshay Chavan shared his addicted to cell phone because of which his studies got affected and he failed his engineering papers even after using the path of bribe but still failed. Upon realizing that only hard work will help him get good grades, he worked with dedication and achieved good grades to clear his exam. Then Sagar spoke about his poor family condition and how he worked while studying due to which he couldn’t clear his first year engineering. After that he went to pursue hotel management and then left for Chennai as he secured a job in a hotel. Another participant, Sahil Shaikh shared his experience while attending the National Youth Conference in Panchgani at 2014 and how he misses the process of quiet time and the four principles of Let's Make A Difference.

Later, participants were given few questions to reflect upon the four Principles during their quiet time. After Quiet Time, participants came into the auditorium for sharing. Pravin Davle shared that his experience of being a part of the 19th National Youth Conference and how the entire experience improved his confidence level and boost his over-all development. Volunteer Ali also shared on his thoughts about honesty and how he got connected to his friends because of this quality. Another participant, Amit Lonkar shared his experience of riding a bike on the wrong side of the road to escape from the policemen and felt guilty of his act, as he could have caused an accident. He also shared how his brother back answered his parents after making some money. Manoj Aher shared about his low self-confidence and how writing so much in his dairy boosted him confidence. Shruti shared her desire to become an IPS officer and she focused on her negatives so that she can work on it and get rid of them.

She also felt that the four principles were missing in her life and how she would be working on them by inculcating it in real life. After the sharing session, all proceeded for lunch. After lunch, all were gathered to take group photograph. Later participants moved towards the auditorium to begin their session on family.

The session began by showing the participants a video that depicts the importance of family and how endless sacrifice of our parents have made for us and how we should be thankful and support them once they grow old. After the video, participants began to share their relations with their family and friends.

One participant shared how her family was not close to her and how she trusted her friends more than her family. One participant apologized a fellow participant in the crowd because of ego problems. Volunteer Hruturaj shared how ignorant he was about his mother’s health when she was critical and felt that the process of change was not complete. One participant shared about her family and how she was happy and blessed to live in a joint family.

Prem shared he had a formal relationship with his parents and he doesn’t speak to his father regularly and feels the lack of unconditional love. Omkar Atole shared that he has friendly relation with his father and adores his mother for being strict. A participant from Ahmednagar shared he loves to make his parents proud. Akansha shared that her mother supported her birth even though her father didn’t wanted a girl child, and how she made her father proud by her achievements. Mayuri Kakade wants to make her father proud by becoming IAS officer. Akash Pathale who failed his exam and shared the failure with his father requesting not to tell his mother and how his father supported and encouraged him to work hard. Sagar appreciated the conference and shared how he reconnected with his family because of the conference.

The session ended on a good note that family plays a very important role in all over lives and how important it is to maintain a good and steady relationship with all loved ones. Then participants were asked to proceed for lunch in silence. After lunch, the participants gathered in the auditorium for the negative burning exercise where all the participants were made to write down their negative quality they want to get rid off and later the papers were burnt.

All the participants took the negative burning exercise positively and a smile was seen on their faces. This was followed by a session on “My Life My Happiness” that was explained by two volunteers: Harshal and Mudit. After this, another session on “Letter to Self” was conducted where all the participants were made to write a letter addressing to oneself. Participants who had done this exercise earlier also spoke to the participants about their experience.

It was a long day filled with activities and the participants were asked to close their eyes in silence and introspect to the tune of a Tibetan hymn”. After dinner the participants were asked to move to their respective group discussion locations and the topic of discussions were: Quiet Time experience, Four Principles [PHUL] and Relationships.

DAY 3

Morning started with the prayer. The first session in the morning was a bit more depth on quiet time and how important it is to follow the conscious through a power point presentation. Along with the importance of quiet time the participants were also told about the mind, ego and heart and explained how conscious is always on the right path and ego is on the wrong side. Then Harshal gave the introduction to the next exercise that was the Pledge. The participants were explained and distributed with a Pledge and were asked to sign it only if they subscribed to the points mentioned on it. Karan also shared his views about the Pledge and its importance. Feedback forms were given to participants to get their insight and thoughts about the journey they experienced. The participants were also shown the accounts chart about the in flow and out flow of money for the conference to make them understand the importance and transparency of money. To conclude the program on a high note, the participants were asked to write one positive commitment towards their life and it was all collected and displayed on the notice board for them to see and catch a glimpse of thoughts of the larger audience. The participants were also given a brief tour about the Let's Make A Difference website and other social media platform and how they can connect with the organization. The participants were asked about their satisfaction level regarding the conference and the response was over whelming and a lot of them came up on the stage and shared theirs views and thoughts and also expressed that a conference for more days would be appreciated. The participants were told about the 5 days conference that was being planned for the month of May for a much larger group and how they could contribute.

The certificate of participation was given to the participants in their individual groups. The participants interacted with the organizing team and their willingness to subscribe to the idea of Purity, Honesty, Unselfishness and love.

It is said, “Everything that begins well, ends well” and this is exactly how this entire conference was concluded on a high energy amongst the participants as well as the organizing team. By sheer dedication of the entire organizing team both local and national under the guidance of the conveyor Mr. Viral Mazumdar another conference was successfully delivered to the youth of Baramati for a better and a bright future.

Photo: Volunteer Team with Mr. Rajendra Pawar, 25-27 Dec, 2017