We believe that empowering communities to take up developmental projects brings accountability through the active participation of the entire community. Projects are most successful when the community takes ownership at every stage, right from planning and funding to implementation and sustainability of their initiatives.
The Art of Living’s role is to become a driver of change by helping communities to shift their mindset from a ‘want state’ to becoming the ‘drivers of change’ themselves. We do this through our capacity building workshops, awareness campaigns, resource-building exercises and by offering technical expertise to help communities become independent and empowered.
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The Art of Living has made Youth Leadership Training Program (YLTP) its vehicle for this transformation, resulting in efficient and effective delivery of its projects. Motivated youth are selected from the local communities and trained appropriately.
The YLTP focusses on personal development and communication skills. Through stress-reducing breathing techniques, individuals find inner peace and communities to come together in a spirit of service. Participants are inspired to volunteer for rural projects. The fruits of the seeds sown in these sessions are experienced by the community as a whole.
These empowered youth, known as Yuvacharyas, act as change agents in their local communities. They take responsibility for implementing the project on the ground under the close supervision of senior project leaders.
YLTP trained youth act as change agents in their local communities.
Starting in 1999, we have trained over 203,000 youth so far as a part of the YLTP model.
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These local yuvacharyas have a strong sense of ownership for the change they seek and their local knowledge is pivotal in the smooth execution of the projects. After the project is over, these yuvacharyas ensure continuity and sustainability of the project.
So far the YLTP base model has rendered remarkable success in areas as diverse as disaster management, promoting child rights, fighting HIV, spreading natural farming techniques and managing conflict. The uniqueness of the YLTP model comes from its intrinsic ability to integrate any issue into its leadership training model and to ensure mindset transformation on the issue on a sustainable basis.
Impact:
- Trained over 2,03,220 rural youth
- Reached 40,212 villages in India
- 55 model villages (in progress)
- Planted over 2.3 million trees
- 2138 homes, 16,550 toilets, 1152 bore-wells and 904 biogas plants built
- 49,500 hygiene camps and 25,950 medical camps conducted benefiting 5.6 million people
