Issue 3 : Process of Leadership Renewal
Issue 3 : Process of Leadership Renewal
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Post-Panel Discussion
What can be done to increase the youth involvement in Tamil organisations ?
Recommendation 1 : Formation of Youth Wings
• The Indian organisations need to involve members around the age of 25-33 more and encourage them to learn . The youths belonging to this age category are working adults and would feel a larger stake in the community .
• Provide the youths with an opportunity to work with the existing management on the same level and hierarchy to organise events and initiatives . These dynamics will prove to be beneficial for the organisations .
• The current leaders need to be their mentors . Organisation leaders need to come forth and share their knowledge by having more engagement sessions . Thus a youth wing can be formed .
• So the recommendation is to provide more engaging sessions to involve youths where leaders can encourage them to take up leadership roles in Indian organisation .
• Youths now are more socially responsible and more vocal . Community leaders need to be participative and take the initiative as well . If leaders are able to use this to their advantage , they can invoke the interest of youth .
Recommendation 2 : Organising forums and leadership training programmes in schools
• Many opportunities are only given to those students who perform well in studies . In addition , talents are identified very early on such that late bloomers do not get the same opportunities to learn as those who are naturally endowed with leadership skills . Hence , one of the suggestions proposed is that current leaders have to reach out to everyone instead of reaching out to only those who are good in academics .
• Some schools invite ministers to speak to the students . However , such events are restricted to students who have been performing well . The community leaders could eliminate such exclusiveness and try to reach out to all the Tamil students so that even late bloomers will have the platform to become leaders .
• A forum and leadership training programme where current leaders share with Tamil youth their leadership experiences can be held . In this forum , leaders would share with youth their thinking process . The emphasis would be on how the leaders come up with new ideas and the reasons behind coming up with such ideas .
• Many a times , leadership forums focus much more on the end-results than the process . When the focus is shifted to the leadership process itself , then , students can gain a better understanding of what it takes to be a leader . One of the current limitations that youth face is that they are unable to interact with leaders directly , i . e . there are too many layers to get past before meeting a leader . This forum would help overcome the limitation by allowing leaders to address the youth population directly .
• There are more open and direct criticisms given during closed door discussions in the absence of the media . However , the number of times these discussions and forums take place in a year is low and there is a lack of follow ups for these discussions .
• Leaders can also make use of social media to interact and connect with youth .