Resilient communities for 3 levels of change – Individual, community and Systemic levels
India is the 7th most vulnerable country to climate change. 8 out of 10 most polluted cities in the world are in India. There are three major reasons to this:
1. Under represented citizens – local problems are tied to hyper local context and citizens in the locality best placed to solve them. But currently, under 1% of citizens involved in solving local issues.
2. Under staffed government – only 3.8% workforce is constituted by public officials in India – which is low compared to other countries. It is important to have a complementary force where citizens act as solution providers and custodians.
3. Under skilled generation – a recent report, around 53% of adolescent will be missing the 21st century skills to thrive in evolving world. If we intend to set a movement at home and abroad that addresses the climate change and strengthen the health of civic communities – youth must have the strong set of skills that will allow their knowledge to be applied in real world.
Reap Benefit with the aim to bring back agency to citizens and leverage power of youth and collective leadership. We have been working on building local communities- Yuva Cabinets.
These cabinets will,
- Empower youth with 21st century skills to become change agents (individual level)
- Leverage the power of local action using technology as an enabler
- Provide complimentary workforce of local citizen community and increase citizen civic engagement (systemic change)
- Lead to resilient communities powered through community sourced data, solutions and campaigns addressing 12 out of 17 SDG goals (Community level – Act Local Solve Global).
The solutions that are being sourced from the cabinet is enabling others facing similar issues. Once such scenario, is stubble burning effort taken by a cabinet will soon be replicated by other cabinets facing the issue [1].
Currently, the cabinets are of two categories depending up on the age group.
- Yuva Cabinet – Adults (18+ years)
- 2. Bala Cabinet – Adolescent (13–17 years)
We currently have 80+ cabinets in total across India. One major challenge for any aspiring solver is getting into a group of like-minds.
In that effort, we have mapped 40+ cabinets of Northen India on our #SamaajData platform[2].
Soon the platform will help these cabinets to see problems crowdsourced from fellow citizens in the neighbourhood and pave way for collective leadership and group action.
Imagine the power these communities can bring in when they are present across the country – No individual, No community, No problem will be left behind.
If you wish to join existing cabinet near you or want to start a new one or you are curious to know more. You shall reachout to me
[1] – https://lnkd.in/g9Mc4pFU
[2] – https://Samaajdata.org
#community #climatechange
