The STEARS celebrated Gandhi Jayanti Day with youth and children in Kashmir to foster deeper awareness about his life and journey, while interpreting the relevance of his ideas on peacebuilding and leadership in modern times.
The STEARS (Steps Towards Educated and Responsible Society) recently commemorated the birth of Mahatma Gandhi, which is marked as a national holiday in India on 2nd October. To celebrate the dawn of one of the most influential leaders of the contemporary world and to instill his values of leadership and empathy in the next generation, the STEARS conducted a participatory event with children hailing from Kashmir. The activities revolved around sensitizing children about Gandhi’s life and his ideology of conflict resolution through peaceful means and living in harmony with one another for a just and humane society.
On that account, The STEARS carried out a competition where students were divided in teams and quizzed on various aspects of Gandhi’s life, on stories from his childhood to adulthood. The objective was to think and ideate as a team and put forth ideas collectively.
A thought-provoking impromptu speech competition was also conducted, wherein the students nominated a member from their team to randomly pick out a Gandhian quote containing any one of Gandhi’s philosophies around leadership, self-empowerment, social transformation, community development and so on. The students had to share thoughts, ideas and anecdotes around the Gandhian quote, accompanied by an impromptu speech about the topic.
One of the participants from Grade 6, Ms. Nafiya Ashraf from Anantnag, resonated with the concept of Leadership in the way Gandhi had visualized it. She said, “Any country’s greatness can be measured in the way, our leaders behave with those who cannot speak for themselves-they may be the voiceless animals and even the oppressed or the financially weaker ones. A leader is also someone who never gives up hope and continues working towards betterment despite failures.”
Apart from making the children aware about Gandhi’s philosophies and drawing its relevance to their own lives, the program sharpened their confidence, communication skills, critical thinking, problem-solving, decision-making and team-work capacities in a fun and engaging way. Through the program, they learnt and discussed about the importance of transformation at both individual and societal levels.
Mr. Omar Hafiz, the Founder of The STEARS elaborated, “To transform today’s youth into effective leaders like him, they must be aware of who he was, what he did, and what he stood for. They must first know what constituted Gandhi’s being; how he never backed down or let fear overtake him; how he always stood up for those oppressed and in need, and more importantly, gave them power to stand up for themselves. Another one of his qualities that were a mark of great leader was his ability to connect to the masses, which is why as much as Gandhi was respected, he was also loved; clear in the way he is even now fondly remembered as “Bapu”. For the next generation, it is important that his birth anniversary is not just another holiday, but a day to commemorate and instill his values and beliefs in oneself and behave in tandem to that. They must also understand that a leader doesn’t force the respect of people, but earns it through his or her acts of humility, hard-work and empathy.”
The STEARS has been actively working across India, with its core region of emphasis being Jammu and Kashmir, for building and strengthening adaptive leadership in the youth, enabling them to bring about social change and community transformation through experiential education programs. With a motto of peacebuilding through education, via such diverse programs, it has been and continues to encourage children to address conflicts, both internal and external, with innovative and creative solutions.
