The Youth Initiative for debate, deliberation and dialogue (YI) as a Bhutan Centre for Media and Democracy (BCMD) project, was launched in 2013 by Phub Dorji and Manny Fassihi under the guidance of BCMD, to address the lack of Youth representation in national policymaking. In its initial stages, the objective was to create a youth-based organisation that would serve as a training platform for youth participation in national democratic processes of Bhutan. However, over the years, the model of YI has undergone stages of enhancement and fine-tuning to remain responsive to the needs and context of its time.