‘Community problems na solve madakke!’

If that’s the last thing you expected to come out of a young person’s mouth, then you need to meet the young Solve Ninjas who are part of our Civic Leadership Incubator. Read on to find out more.

Youngsters. Kids. Youth. Gen X,Y,Z… there’s so much being written about them today. One prevailing stereotype is that they’re all glued to their phones, gaming, snap chatting, planning their escape to fairer shores… some even say they’re the reason our economy is in such a slump. They don’t care is the overarching message.

Our own experience of working with youngsters has been vastly different. For over seven years now, we’ve activated thousands of young people in the space of civic and environmental problem solving, providing them the tools and mentoring needed. We call them Solve Ninjas. We’ve always been blown away by their ideas, their empathy, their awareness and willingness to try to do something about the problems they and their communities face.

We compare our Solve Ninjas’ growth to climbing a ladder, which we call the civic ladder.

One of the ways we chart the progress of young people on their problem solving journey is the Civic Ladder.

But what awaits them at the top of this ladder? Where do they go next? One of our goals has been for young people to see local governance, social entrepreneurship or policy as aspirational careers in which they can continue to seed and foster change in communities.

Meet our future Civic Leaders

Last month we launched our first ever Civic Leader Incubator. A three month long program with the goal to create civic leaders who will solve problems at the local/state and national level.

Our nine future civic leaders are all Solve Ninjas from government and affordable private schools in Bengaluru and Hubli. Each of the Solve Ninjas were selected based on the following criteria

• They took at least 5 in depth, civic actions during their school engagement with Reap Benefit and afterwards.
• They have consistently shown leadership qualities during the engagement, such as: leadership skills and teamwork, critical thinking, ownership, good communication, entrepreneurial thoughts and awareness about problems in their area.
• They have demonstrated interest in working on civic and environment/social issues and have shown a willingness to explore this space deeply in the future.

Over the next three months our Solve Ninjas will use the DISS framework to solve civic and environmental issues that are affecting their entire community. Through the course of the program the 8 Solve Ninjas will build their knowledge of the different stakeholders involved in solving civic issues, and learn to use certain tools to solve these problems. They will do this through expert mentoring from both within and outside the Reap Benefit team and peer learning and leadership lessons which will be held three times a month.

“While some of them already knew what issues they wanted to tackle, with others who were unsure, we have them a series of challenges to take on that would help them decide what community issue they could take on,” says Reap Benefit mentor Ashish VR.

Ashish VR has been working on the initiative and shares that “In each session the Solve Ninjas come together to discuss their problems, troubleshoot for each other and share their experiences. We also want each Solve Ninja to take their 21st century skills to the next level.”

Most of our first cohort has already identified the community problem they wish to solve.

But it’s not only our Solve Ninjas who are learning. Ashish says that the Reap Benefit team is constantly learning from the experience of executing something like this on digital platforms. “These students often have one smartphone in the house which they have access to only in the evenings, and often by then the data packs on the phones are depleted. Or they have siblings who need to use the phone for their own classes or homework.”

Vinod Raje Urs, who has mentored some of our young Civic Leaders in the past and works closely with the cohort is inspired by their genuine desire to solve issues in their villages and their rigorous follow up with the team. “They have many constraints on their time, and the fact that they wish to spend the small window of time they do have in the day solving civic and environmental issues in their village inspires me to take more actions in my own community,” says Vinod.

“It’s not easy going out into your community, talking to strangers and collecting data,” continues Vinod. “I myself used to find this very difficult, but seeing how our young problem solvers approach this has made me overcome my own feelings around this.”

Solve Ninja Rajashekhar meets local law enforcement to understand why road accidents due to road humps are prevalent. This was his 1st time interacting with the police, he was nervous and felt happy as well. The officer gave polite responses and helped him with information and shared his experience.

The road ahead

“Post the three month intense mentoring, we will continue to work with the cohort. Solutions that show great potential could receive seed funding to develop them. We’re also hoping to provide them internships with local government representatives or with NGOs,” says Ashish.

Vinod chimes in and says that after the three months, “We will continue to work closely with each cohort as they continue to be community leaders through consistent civic actions over the years. The hope is that they work towards becoming social entrepreneurs and/or choose a career in civic services.”

The final impact and success indicators will be visible in 5–6 years when these potential leaders make their choice of career. That might seem a long way off but we’re in this for the long haul. And so are our Solve Ninjas.