Published On : Tue, Dec 22nd, 2015

Five Nagpur Youngsters leave for ‘Jagriti Yatra’ today

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Jagriti YatraNagpur: While adult Indians leave for char dham yatras, Amarnath yatra, Kasi yatra or Mecca yatra, these lucky five get to do a yatra of 12 Indian cities/ towns/ villages of 12 different states travelling together with hundreds of other youth all travelling together by a special ‘Indian Railways’ train!

As one tweet about the Jagriti Yatra will tell you –

Jagriti Yatra (@JagritiYatra). 1 Train. 12 destinations. 15 Role Models. 15 days. 8000 kms. 450 of world’s brightest youth on a train.

The five Nagpur young girls and guys going on this yatra this year are:

Riddhi Saboo
Maansi Shah
Lavina Amesar
Jinish Kataria
Shubham Jejani

Nagpur Today managed to speak to some of them…and ask some questions.

First of all, what exactly is Jagriti Yatra?

Jagriti Yatra is an initiative of Jagriti Sewa Sansthan, a non-governmental organization that promotes entrepreneurship. The initiative was launched in 2008. In Hindi, Jagriti Yatra means a journey of awakening, and as the name suggests it is a journey of social awakening. Youngsters, between the age group of 20 and 27, from India and overseas can apply to go on the yatra. The journey is for 15 days in which, a distance of 8000 kilometers is covered,They visit 15 Role Models at 12 destination covering The Indian States of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala,Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Rajasthan and Gujarat in a train that transports only the yatris or travelers of the Jagriti Yatra. The individuals who go for the journey are supposed to live in the train for the span of 15–18 days and interact with their fellow travelers.

The Jagriti Yatra has the aim of exposing the Indian Youth to the concept of social entrepreneurship and social progress through enterprise led development.

How are the participants selected?

Aspirants fill application forms giving detailed resumes and answer 7 questions.

One has to be between 20 and 27 years of age.As one can see from above names, there is an emphasis on selecting deserving young women. That is because one of the aims of Jagriti is to

To increase the participation of women at both the organisational and community level, by creating a gender-sensitive environment and mainstreaming gender in every stage of the programme’s implementation.

The other aims are –
To strengthen local self-governance and build leadership in panchayati raj institutions.

To enhance the capacities of traditional village leaders, youth and women so that they can actively participate in the process of development through their own enterprises.

Thus the train load of youngsters inter act with villagers, panchayat members and others everywhere they go.

The Jagriti Sewa Sansthan was founded in 1985 with the main objective of societal development, basedin Deoria Madhya Pradesh. The NGO focuses on participatory development and works mainly towards skill development. It believes that entrepreneurship and skill development go hand-in-hand.

In 2007, Swapnil Dixit, then a recent graduate from IIT Kharagpur, led Jagriti Yatra as the Executive director until 2012. Under his leadership, the yatra took its current form and became a recurring annual event.

The Nagpur youngsters who were super excited on leaving on this marvelous journey, that will definitely change their lives, had this to say about why they were the chosen ones:

Riddhi Saboo, who is studying to be a CA, said ” I believe I was selected because I do different things, am open to learn, and don’t follow the crowd blindly”.

She works with 10 different NGOs striving to create awareness about environment, sanitation, tree planting, women empowerment etc. and together with some friends runs a magazine called ‘Bloom’.

Another participant, Maansi Shah says :
The reason that I think I got selected for Jagriti Yatra could be one of the following:

1. I am an explorer, i love to travel and learn. to work for the society, i need to first see to society for what it already is. My past attempts at learning about communities, various ways of life, and the problems of he current system of society could have reflected my hunger to work in that context.

2. I want to work not only sustain myself but to bring about meaningful changes in my community. This search and strife to work towards having a better self sustained society drove me towards Jagriti Yatra and that could have been reflected to them.

3. the small steps that i have taken in this regard by being socially sensitive and active in the past few years, could have surely worked in my favour.

Nagpur Today wishes these youngsters all the best and hope they come back wiser, more motivated and empowered to bring Change to the country!