Skill Building in Action
A Pride of Punjab update from Krithika Ramakrishnan.
Young people stepping up into the role of nation building and solutioning for imminent, important problems is a powerful gesture. And when the state starts to think of “What we can do to invest in the youth?” over “What can young people even do?” — the horizons of potential expand. This has been the journey of the Pride of Punjab project launched by the Govt of Punjab and UNICEF over the last few months.
Young people sometimes just need to be reminded that they carry the spark that can catalyse the course the future takes. They need a nudge to believe in themselves so they can seize every opportunity to learn, grow and transform themselves and the community around them!
Since the launch of Pride of Punjab, we have seen many instances that stand testament to the above, with problem solving YuWaah Ninjas responding to nudges and taking action. Here are just a few of them.
On a mission to save water!
Water is an invaluable, non-renewable resource which is under great crisis. Understanding this, 80+ young YuWaah Ninjas set out to take small steps towards water conservation.
13 year old Sachin took all the water used in the kitchen to wash vegetables and vessels to water the plants. Another YuWaah Ninja, Arshdeep Kaur of 14 years made sure that the water that was being wasted from the water filter was used for the washing machine and washing vessels.
11 year old Ankit Sharma from Mohali, has taken 1 small step that is going to save close to a litre of water everytime someone uses the flush! He has placed a one litre PET water bottle in the flush tank which will reduce the volume and make sure that less water is consumed with each use!
Solving problems around them, one action at a time
20 year old YuWaah Ninja Sukhjeet Kaur from Amritsar showed her community the way forward with wet waste. She is a regular now at composting the wet waste from her kitchen into manure for the soil. Sukhjeet believes this protects the environment, prevents odour from wet waste accumulation and makes the soil more fertile.
YuWaah Ninja Simran Kaur, 17 from Jalandhar on the other hand is emerging as an amazing community mobiliser. She brought together various members of her local community from tiny tots to adults to participate in her tree plantation efforts. She is a true plant lover and regularly reminds people to take care of the plants too.
Gagandeep Singh, 24 from Amritsar is an emerging leader! He runs a youth club with other interested youngsters who are on a mission to support and rise up to meet the community’s needs. Recently in December, they identified black spots in the locality and cleared them up collectively. Further to make sure these are maintained well and not becoming blackspots again, they painted the walls with thought provoking messages. Kudos to them!
Have you met these budding journalists yet?
Yuwaah Ninja Aditi did a splendid job of bringing attention and serious thought to the problem of garbage disposal and cleanliness in her locality in Fazilka through a video essay. She showed us what the issue was, took us on a journey of how it affects the life of the community and asked relevant questions aimed at solutioning.
The pen is mightier than the sword, they say. This was especially true for 18 year old Nikhil Mittal of Bathinda who brought our focus to the issue of water logging in his area through the written word. He essay highlighted the real concerns of safety and health and was a powerful reminder for us to start working on this issue.
We’ll be bringing you more amazing stories from across Punjab both here and on social media in the months to come. So follow Reap Benefit on Medium, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to know more.
