Youth Hub-Rural Storytelling

Background

“A thatched hut, a semi clad woman on a charpoi and a man smoking bidi with no sanitation, roads, electricity and water” was the response of a post graduate student in a recent workshop at a premier college in New Delhi when asked ‘What comes to mind when you hear the word rural’?

Students from Auro University during a workshop organised by Youth Hub

Stories on rural India constitute less than 2% of mainstream media in India. In a country that is 70% rural, this is rather strange. Urban educated India thus has little or no knowledge about the realities of rural India. Urban India remains indifferent to rural India and feeds on stereotypes about rural as being stagnant or stranded, a drag on growth.  On the contrary, rural India is dynamic, diverse, vibrant and changing at a fast pace.

Our education system rarely talks about the social, cultural, religious and civil life including the transformational changes in rural India. Students rarely get a glimpse of real rural India. They have no idea of the kind of organizations working on these issues and how they function. Even development professionals and organizations committed to impacting the lives of the rural communities shy away from telling their stories in an engaging and interesting way to attract the attention of urban India. Often, they are project driven and narrated in a complex way using jargons for self-promotion. Not many find them engaging and worth reading.

This urban educated youth will tomorrow occupy positions in civil services, public life, corporate sector or even in the development sector. With such a dim view of rural India, they are likely to remain biased and insensitive to the dynamism and the vibrancy of rural India. This defeats the very purpose of building an equitable, inclusive and progressive India.

Village Square is a modest attempt to change this. It is a platform to share stories and insights about rural India. It encourages development professionals, researchers, journalists, photographers, artists, film makers, video producers and other social media activists to share stories about rural life in all its richness and diversity. Village Square has three verticals: Editorial, Data Intelligence Unit and Youth-Hub. We invite you to participate in this convening to learn how we can work together to spread the word about rural communities and tell their stories more effectively and in a fun way.

AGENDA

Objective: Share Village Square as a platform for rural storytelling and develop a road map to work together.