Young India Foundation/NAAIS

YIF has been surviving on the goodwill of our volunteers for over three years now, but it is time we scale and institutionalize the model of youth political participation we have pioneered. As of May of 2021, we have helped over 56 young people run for political office. The past year we helped eight candidates, and seven of them were able to win. Our rate of success has increased by 300% year over year. Yet, the candidates we sign and bring on have decreased due to the lack of resources. The Elevate Prize will help us take our model and scale it to a national level as well as giving us the resources and insight to keep us sustainable. The funding would go exclusively in two different places: the first would be hiring skilled young professionals who contribute their skills to young candidates and change-makers in helping them run campaigns; the second area of funding would be towards the campaigns we run for different people on different issues.

The mentorship would help give representation to the over 600 million young Indians below the age of 25. We need a larger collective group working to tackle the scale of this problem

I grew up in a small town in Alabama where I made up the diversity. It was there that I found the power of community. In college, I began looking into, academically, youth demographics which made me learn more about India’s population. I began to do research of the lack of youth political participationin the fall of 2013 when I was attacked by four assailants sent by a local politician in a small town of Haryana. The scar on my forehead is a daily reminder of why I do what I do everyday.

They attacked me, because they thought that I was asking far too many controversial questions, and wanted me to leave the town. Imagine if asking questions can provoke those in power, how much would it impact them if we started electing people to office?

I started YIF, because I know what is at stake here: the future of young people, and we have to do everything we can to help. I’m not asking for a revolution, I’m asking for systemic changes to ensure that young people’s voices are heard in all levels of governance to build a better country and world for young people.

India currently has the highest rate of youth suicides, youth illiteracy, youth unemployment and has one of the lowest youth development index in the entire world. The country is also home to the largest youth demographic in the world: with over 600 million people below the age of 25. With such a huge population of young people, the issues that young people face would be expected to be a priority for representatives and those in power. That is far from the case. India’s young have a 0.02% representation in parliament and state assemblies. Those making policies for India’s demographics have limited understanding of this substantial demographic. Young India Foundation recruits and trains young people, and helps run their campaigns to close that representational gap with a more reflective set of leaders.

We hear often that young people are not political. We believe that’s far from the truth, and electoral politics is purposely biased towards outsiders and young people taking part. We help simplify and level the playing field with our insight and skills in electoral campaigns (from booth management, polling data, PR, and social media), so young people have a fair chance of taking part in India’s electoral democracy.

India has never had an organization that exclusively focuses on helping independent and nonpartisan young candidates. Before us, if you wanted to take part in India’s decision making, you had to join a political party without ever actually being able to contest due to the lack of knowledge and resources on how to contest. We’ve made it easier: contest as an independent, and we’ll help in every step. Now, with Young India Foundation, you have people between the ages of 21 to 29 that come from a variety of backgrounds that have been traditionally less represented: Dalits, underprivileged, LGBTQ, and women directly contesting for local office and winning without  political party support. This has never been done before. Our new approach is simple, yet something traditional structures have failed to do: educate people about India’s electoral democracy and equip them to lead. We put in effort in trying to find young people from non-traditional backgrounds who are just as talented enough to run if they understood the system better. The results are outstanding and speak for themselves. 

For decades, all over the world, young people are expected to be model citizens but never empowered to bring about change.

Young people’s lack of representation is, we believe, a direct correlation to India’s abysmal youth development index. This indicator takes into consideration: literacy, health, violence, standard of living, employment opportunities and other such areas. If we make better policy and have more representational leaders, change occurs.

These issues are impacting India’s youth and are humanitarian. Young people are losing their lives and livelihoods, and COVID has escalated the pressing needs.

Our plan is simple and effective: we make it possible for young people to reach positions of decision-making, and with that authority, these new elected representatives have made tangible changes to impact the state of young people through policy, effective administration, and an empathetic perspective. With over 50 candidates in office, we can see a tangible change in villages and cities in all sectors. We have also constituted a way to monitor the impact by global standards by our team monitoring, at a local level, improvements in SDGs for their area, so that we can attest that by recruiting young people and getting them elected to public office helps humanity on a larger scale, one young representative at a time.