Youth Conferences

 

The Let’s Make A Difference Youth Team conducts Regional and National Youth Conferences to facilitate inner transformation among young people, enabling them to lead lives rooted in ethical and moral values and to become accountable, benchmark citizens who offer alternative and responsible thinking to society.

Let’s Make A Difference conducts an annual National Youth Conference for young people and people who feel young at heart from the ages of 15 and above. This eight-day residential learning experience is held every year from 1st June to 8th June and is designed to provide young people with the space, guidance, and tools required for deep personal reflection and growth.

This Youth Conference has been conducted consistently since 1993 and has been attended by a diverse cross-section of young people from different states, cultures, and backgrounds. The conference encourages each participant to discover their own unique role in the transformation the world needs, beginning with transformation within themselves.

Over the years, the conference has helped many participants gain clarity and direction in their lives. Young people have reported meaningful improvements in goal-setting, family relationships, career choices, personal habits, and their contribution to society.

The conference aims to:

• Inspire and motivate young people to recognise and realise their inner strengths

• Strengthen their value systems and sense of responsibility

Change is deeply personal and varies from individual to individual. For some, change may mean repairing strained relationships with parents or siblings. For others, it may mean choosing honesty in academics and refusing to cheat in examinations. For many, change involves taking a stand against corruption, refusing to pay or accept bribes, or committing to ethical practices in their profession or business. For some, it may involve filing an RTI application to seek accountability in governance, while for others, it may mean letting go of harmful habits or addictions. Each journey of change is unique and equally significant.

At the heart of the conference lies the practice of morning Quiet Time, an individual’s personal space for reflection, combined with the sharing of real-life stories of struggles, failures, and successes. This environment enables deep introspection, recognition of one’s own mistakes, and the willingness to correct them over time. Let’s Make A Difference creates the possibility of a new beginning, addressing one of the deepest human defeats: the gap between what one is capable of becoming and what one has actually become. Participants often leave the conference with a renewed sense of clarity, responsibility, and personal triumph.

To facilitate this transformation, participants are taken on an inward journey where they reflect, introspect, and understand themselves more honestly. This process enables them to initiate meaningful changes in their lives and truly make a difference. The journey is supported through a range of interactive, experiential, and engaging activities conducted throughout the eight days of the conference.

Every year, young people come together to meet, deliberate, and create roadmaps on how they can make a difference in building a better world to live in.

Participants of the National Youth Conference come from:

• Urban centres, rural towns, and villages across India

• International communities, with participants from different countries

• Young people selected from the grassroots of Naxal-affected regions, the North-Eastern states, the Kashmir Valley, and youth impacted by agrarian crises in Central India

• Tibetan community

Glimpses of Change

• Young journalism students choose rural journalism over comfortable jobs in metropolitan cities.
• An electrical engineer leaves a lucrative position with a major engineering conglomerate to prepare for the Indian Administrative Services, driven by a desire to serve the nation through public service.
• A doctor steps away from an inherited restaurant business and goes on to successfully manage and execute public health programs across India.
• An architect from Ankleshwar commits to never using plastic bags as her personal contribution to environmental sustainability. She also plays a key role in organising moral value–based camps for 75 schoolchildren and now practices sustainable architecture.
• A young teacher from Jharkhand decides to pursue his dream of building a school in an Adivasi region. Despite numerous challenges, he succeeds in establishing the school without paying a single bribe.
• Several young people involved in family-run businesses choose the path of honesty while engaging with government departments and handling taxation matters.

The eight-day journey of Let’s Make A Difference creates a profound opportunity for individuals to turn inward, sit in silence, and reflect deeply, returning again and again until they discover what truly matters for their life. We invite you to participate in the Let’s Make A Difference National Youth Conference, held every year from 1st to 8th June.

Regional Youth Conferences are conducted with the same essence, values, and impact. These are held in various cities and regions, including Ankleshwar, Baramati, Bhavnagar, Bhubaneswar, Ghatshila (Jharkhand), Tamar (Jharkhand), Jamshedpur, Haridwar, Indore, Katni, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai, Nagpur, Parli, Ranchi, Rishikesh, and Surat.

These four-day, power-packed conferences aim to take the message of conscious and value-based living to young people wherever they are. Unlike the National Youth Conference, Regional Conferences are non-residential and are heavily subsidised to ensure accessibility for a wider section of youth.