Two-day youth summit in Chennai to feature filmmakers, artists

CHENNAI: City based non-profit Nalandaway Foundation, which uses arts to help children from disadvantaged backgrounds, will collaborate with US Consulate General, Chennai, to put together a two-day Youth Speak Summit that will be a confluence of curated talks, panel discussions, workshops, skill sharing and human library events. Sriram Ayer, who founded Nalandaway in 2005, says the idea is to provide an opportunity for youth aged between 18 and 30, to talk about their personal stories and learn from other influencers working in the areas of gender, sexuality, mental health, arts and society.
“It would be a safe space for young people to find not just peer groups to discuss these challenges, but also listen to mentors who are experts in their own fields and learn from their challenges in terms of education, career and society,” says Sriram.“Director Pa Ranjith, for instance, will talk about his work from a social justice and inclusion point of view, while another director like Vetri Maaran would give some insight on socially conscious films, and ways to access the film industry and make a career out of it,” says Sriram.
Among other speakers are life coach Avis Viswanathan, writer Nandhita Hariharan and actor Pooja Devariya.
U.S. Consul for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Lauren Lovelace says, “The United States and India share the distinction of being the world’s oldest and largest democracies respectively. And the future of our democracies depends on our young people. Youth Speak Summit 2018 seeks to empower young leaders who exemplify the best of our societies.”
According to Sriram, for Nalandaway, one of the challenges has been in understanding incidents of mental health issues among adolescents, the stigma, and the lack of awareness and redressal around it. “These could stem from triggers such as sexual orientation, the skewed idea of beauty, etc. Sriram says, through this space, we want to create a space for discussion and sharing of ideas and solutions that they may otherwise not be able to access,” he says.
Writer Nandhitha Hariharan will be talking about 'Writing, mental health and making life better with the written word'. There will also be a panel discussion on 'Building an inclusive society', which will include a panel of Shanti Raghavan, co-founder, Enable India, Akkai Padmashali, founder, Ondede, Lakshmi Ravikanth, deputy dean, Banyan Academy of Leadership in Mental Health and Vincent Raj, founder of human rights NGO, Evidence.
The event will also feature a social enterprise pitch fest in association with Ashoka Youth Venture, wherein passionate, socially-minded and entrepreneurial youth can pitch their proposals. The five best proposals will be selected by a panel of experts and win a cash prize of Rs 50,000. There will also be a human library, skill sharing garden, counselling clinics by The Banyan, #BeyondFilter, a photography exhibition in association with Chennai Photo Biennale and a Graffiiti Wall for the participants to engage in art.
“The idea is to have a number of templates that youth organisations can take back from this event and improve their programming with. This could be in terms of the interventions they do and skills civil society trainers and facilitators can build on while working with a young demographic,” says Sriram.
Youth Speak Summit will be held at the Madras Management Association Centre, Anna Salai, on December 1 and 2. To register, go to www.youthspeak2018.org.