BCMD e-News for July 2017
Youth Proposes Action Plans in Youth Summit
Six action plans will be implemented over the next few months, which 91 students from schools and colleges and youth across the country proposed during the 3rd Youth Summit. And for the first time, a group of youth and a few teachers assisted in facilitating the Summit, making it a truly youth-led activity.
BCMD organised its annual Youth Summit: Youth As Change Makers from July 26-28 for youth across Bhutan. Participants came from Rangjung Central School and Sherubtse College in Trashigang and Yebilaptsa Central School in Zhemgang along with some young working adults and recent graduates.
Students from College of Natural Resources (CNR), Khesar Gyalpo University of Medical Science (KGUMS), and other youths from nearby schools and graduates also took part in the Youth Summit.
The summit is unique in its focus on giving youth space to deliberate on issues and to discover their own ability to contribute to positive change. The summit also gave youth a platform to discuss pressing issues and coin their role for youth in a democracy. During the three-day summit, the 91 youths who were divided into six different family groups proposed six step down action plans. All the six action plans are oriented to the communities around their colleges and schools.
Six action plans were proposed by six family groups, which were formed regionally for the ease of implementation of the projects.
Names of the six groups were derived from the word “Change” since this year’s summit was themed “Youth As Change Makers.” Each group had its name from a letter each of the word change.
Creative (Yebilaptsa Central School, proposed to protect drinking water source.
Hope (KGUMS): Make pre-hospital First Aid available training for students.
Accessibility (CNR Graduates): Work towards reducing automobile workshop effluents from running into a stream at Metsina in Punakha.
Nightingale (CNR Students): Work towards reducing automobile workshop effluents from running into a stream at Metsina in Punakha.
Gender (Students from different schools and LGBT members): Teach English in nunneries.
Explorers (Sherubtse College and Rangjung Central School): Help the unattended old people in the villages of Trashigang with clothes, food and medical care.
UNICEF Bhutan and CISU supported this wonderful summit held at the Royal Thimphu College.
Cohort of Facilitators Trained
A group of 18 youths including graduates and undergraduates were trained with teachers in facilitation during Facilitators’ Training of Trainers from 23-25 July.
Freelance consultant from Action Aid, Sisse Budolfsen and Htoi San Awng (LB) from Action Aid, Denmark and Myanmar respectively trained facilitators on social change and action learning. The facilitators were being prepared to facilitate the 3rd Youth Summit: Youth As Change Makers.
Their role was also to learn to create positive learning environment and progressive dynamics amidst challenges.
The facilitators helped guide six family groups comprising 91 youths during the three-day summit. The training will also help this group of facilitators from different walks of life to learn and reflect on group composition. Thanks to CISU for this engaging support.
Youth Initiative Camp Trains Youth
A teacher trainee from Paro College of Education wanted to use texts, audio, images, and video skills she acquired from the YI Summer Camp to improve her teaching skills.
Inspired by the training, she said that using multimedia skills could be one way to make classroom environment livelier. “I can use these skills to make teaching more attractive to students,” the teacher trainee said.
During the week-long summer camp, participants were taught multimedia skills as well as media and democracy literacy. They learnt to use texts, images, film and audio. At the end of the training each group produced a one-minute long programme on different subjects.
Other participants also had different ideas to use these skills to bring out the struggles of farmers. Some college students wanted to hold a documentary competition to keep them in touch with their skills.
The YI Camp also covered sessions on News and Media Literacy. YI members learnt to identify various information neighbourhoods including news, opinions, advertising, propaganda. They also explored the power of information. Participants were also educated on judging news credibility and how verification, independence and evaluation actually separate journalism from rest of the news outlets.
Participants also learnt about fairness and bias, the two vital aspects of journalism. Since, social media is become indispensable part of modern media, session also covered issue of social media and ethics surrounding it. At the end of the workshop, YI members pitched ideas to carry out simple activities to benefit their own communities. We’re looking forward to seeing their final plans by the end of this week.
Community Mapping Trainers Keen to
Share Ideas
Following a weeklong training on Community Mapping at Paro, 16 teachers from various schools will help BCMD create more active and engaged citizens.
These teachers will help BCMD in training youths in different schools to identify pertinent local issues. They will then help them find solutions to these local issues through step down approach.
BCMD trained teachers from schools in Paro and Samdrup Jongkhar, among others in Community Mapping from July 6-11. These teachers were trained with an objective to train youths in respective areas and schools to be more active as young citizens in a democracy.
At the end of the training, these teachers shared their local action plan with the officials from Paro Dzongkhag in a meeting of a pilot town committee. They worked on their action plan during a six-day long training on action plan.
Some of the local action plans they proposed at Paro during their six-day Training of Trainers included action to address stray dogs, lack of toilets in town area. The other two local action plans were lack of vegetable sheds at Shaba and strengthening of community-school relationship at Drukgyal.
Paro Town Committee to Review Volunteers
In partnership with BCMD, the Paro thromde ( municipal authority) has set up a town committee as a pilot activity to review the priorities of the town and to work with schools and volunteers to address them. Among the issues being looked at are how to improve on sanitation through building public toilets, how to deal with vendors’ needs, the issue of the sterilisation of stray dogs.
These are the proposals from teachers who were trained to conduct community mapping activities in Paro. The first town committee meeting was held on July 14 at the Wachang gup’s office. Members also include a few residents of Paro town, representatives from civil society organisations, local leaders as well as the municipal staff.
The meeting explored how to create more participatory spaces to be more inclusive in making decisions affecting the town. This pilot has been made possible with support from International IDEA.
We look forward to growing with the Paro community members.
Multimedia Training of Trainers
Fourteen participants from Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), Youth Initiative (YI) members and teachers produced four two-minute audio-visual productions with the theme “local hero”.
They featured four different characters who were locally inspirational. They included a specially disabled man practicing woodcarving, a man selling balloons for a living, a differently abledman pursuing body building, and the life of a young musician, rapper.
All featured characters were from Thimphu city. The Training of Trainers covered topics such as photography, scripting, story pitching, research and interview, among others.
The workshop was aimed at enabling participants to conduct such trainings at their own respective organisations and schools in future. We thank CISU, Marie Thesbergm and Kim Nguyen for supporting the workshop.