Jagriti Yatra ’14 – Day 1

Day 1 (From the train)

Fancy Facebook updates, wacky selfies that’s how it started!

Soon after, quick chats turned into engaging conversations; Stories were captured in sublime memories; Noise gradually gave way to silence.

Eventually Yatris began connecting dots. You might remember the famous Einstein theory, E= (mc) square. One of the Yatris was explained how psychology could be understood using this complex science equation. As per his explanation, energy could be instantaneously transferred from one particle to another particle when C is constant and that’s what happens in telepathy.

This year Jagriti Yatra has a great mix. Yatris hailing from rural areas, outnumber the ones from urban. Although these young travellers are from different geographical locations, only after engaging in conversations with them one will understand how connected Yatris are through their ambitions. Typically, Yatris build their connections with each other describing their obstacles and several of them realized they had similar issues by the avid Life Line Session. The yatris both from private and government schools – had to put a tough fight to be able to let go off, numerous treasured things, and convince their families to live their dream of building the nation. Most of the yatris faced similar problems, only difference was they were affected on different level by those problems.

7 verticals, 72 teams! Education leads the chart in the train.

Team Youthopia interacted with EDU 2 group to interpret Yatris’ ambitions and decode their entrepreneurial minds.
EDU 2 is one of the 11 groups who are interested in Education. After listening to some exhilarating stories; team Youthopia popped in a question for more discussion:-

How to improve quality of education in government schools?
Brainstorming session was altered by the speculations and came around as a heart-warming meet. Yatris from this group were listening to understand, as they are aware of what it was like to be unheard. As a group these are few points that came across,
“Empower teachers”
“Why not make teaching more attractive, as an occupation “
“Why not understand the models of various schools and implement them here?”
“This one step would make it lot easier, let’s make a rule where the children of lecturers working in government schools will be sent to government schools only “.
“Forcing people to do that would be communism; we should change these schools in such a way that they enrol their kids here.”
“One should work on improving the teaching methodologies “.

The dialogue is still open for discussion in the train, for days to come.
The most compelling part of this entire exercise was the confusion that clouded their minds earlier and this Yatra that allowed a reality check. Towards the end of the debate, they understood the problem and issues in this field better and had more clarity on what could or not be a sustainable solution. Well they do have 14 more days to chalk it down.

Why these groups? Why the discussions?
Often like-minded people don’t think alike; hence the groups and various solutions. One has to witness the efforts facilitators put in to give more direction and meaning to these discussions. Of course that’s expected as the Jagriti Yatra team spends close to 10 days to divide the groups and add a facilitator that will be of value to the team, with similar interest or experience. Team building and team managing, this is the best hands on experience for the facilitators; three facilitators will have to grease out the friction between 60 Yatris.

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