Youth: Keeping a focus on our future world leaders

On July 25th & 26th, 2011, five representatives from the Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual Organization, attended a High Level Meeting on Youth at the General Assembly, United Nations Headquarters in New York. The high-level meeting had an overarching theme “Youth: Dialogue and Mutual Understanding”. It was comprised of two informal interactive round tables and two plenary meetings between International Delegates, Humanitarian Groups, and Guest Speakers.

The round tables were chaired by Member States at the invitation of the President of the General Assembly. The first round table focused on strengthening international cooperation regarding youth and enhancing dialogue, mutual understanding and active youth participation as indispensable elements towards achieving social integration, full employment and the eradication of poverty. The second round table was themed around challenges to youth development and opportunities for poverty eradication, employment and sustainable development.

It was stated during the meeting that roughly 1.8 billion of the world’s population is comprised of youth in their teens and twenties. And notably India’s population is said to have 840 million people under the age of 35.

At the onset of the International Year of Youth in September 2010, the Brahma Kumaris launched a project called Spotlight Values, which is dedicated to enabling youth to explore, express & exchange values. From September 2010, they started by exploring the values linked with the UN days of peace, non-violence, tolerance and human rights. In 2011 the youth picked additional values they felt would be important components of a brighter tomorrow, which to date are Love, Purity, Courage, Respect, Acceptance & Freedom.

At the high level youth meeting, the Brahma Kumaris representatives intervened informally by sharing a written statement with the delegates about the progress and success of the Spotlight Values project. It highlighted the project’s milestones, international appeal and invited them to a celebration event scheduled for August 2011 in New York City. By asking youth to explore values that support cooperation, mutual understanding and social upliftment, the Spotlight Values project supported the agenda of the high level youth meeting. Apart from interacting with the delegates, the Brahma Kumaris representatives listened actively to the content of the high level meeting to see how the Spotlight Values project can further serve the international youth population and seed positive social change in the world.

The Spotlight Values project has asked youth across the world to actively explore values in their everyday life and then create multimedia expressions to describe what they discovered. Very creative and inspiring photos, movies, slide shows, paintings, essays, poems, stories, plays and songs have been created, and can be viewed at http://spotlightvalues.org.

To date there have been a total of 15 countries that have created Spotlight Values programs. The project was originally going to culminate with the International year of youth this August. However, do to the far-reaching enthusiasm the project has brought, it will continue to be made available for youth to explore, experience and express their values. You are welcome to visit the website above to experience the youths potential to light up the world. To get involved locally you may contact the local Brahma Kumaris branch.