CYDA to bring more rural youth under its wing

PUNE: The centre for Youth and Development Activities (CYDA), a city-based youth organisation, has decided to mark its 10th anniversary on Saturday by reaching out to more youngsters from the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes for its one year-post graduate internship programme.
CYDA's Learn4change' youth internship project at present has 10 SC/ST students from the rural areas of Satara, Sangli, Sangola, Nanded, Latur, Beed, Wardha and Sangamner, who are living and studying in Pune.CYDA founder-director Mathew Mattam says, "We hope to increase this batch to include 30 students from under-privileged backgrounds in 2009."
Explaining CYDA's mission, Mathew says, "We are pursuing a two-pronged plan, where affluent youngsters from city colleges are exposed to poverty and social issues and rural youth are provided with this one-year, skills-upgradation programme, which can help them get better jobs."
According to Mathew, rural youth are not able to compete with their more affluent urban counterparts. "The internship programme is our sincere attempt to bridge this urban-rural divide and provide rural youth with spoken English skills, computer knowledge, personality development and career counselling."
CYDA, which was founded to provide the young generation with an exposure to social work and social issues, has distinguished itself in the last decade by directing young volunteers to undertake relief work during floods in the state and the 2004 tsunami tragedy.
CYDA will celebrate its 10th anniversary at YMCA, Quartergate on January 10 at 6 pm with pantomime acts and presentations.
CYDA's rural batch of students has made significant strides in the last year. Trained in the art of pantomime, the volunteers toured 17 districts of the state and did 47 shows on the pitfalls of genetically-modified crops. They also presented shows to communicate the safe sex' message to counter HIV-AIDS.
Says Sachin Ahire, a BCom graduate from Sangamner, "The CYDA course has helped me converse in English. It has improved my computer skills and I can now hope to pursue an IT course soon."
Asha Kamble, a BA graduate from Bhimnagar village in Satara district says, "I could not speak any English at all. After the course, I have gained some confidence and am able to communicate more effectively."
Natasha Ginwala, former CYDA volunteer and a masters student at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, recalls: "Travelling to the Vidharba district to talk to farmers during the Action Aid-CYDA' campaign and later, going to the Andaman and Nicobar islands as a member of Action Aid's tsunami response programme has had a strong influence on my character and world view."