The Hindu Business Line : Youth summit to begin tomorrow at Hyderabad

AROUND 1,000 youths from nearly 40 countries from South and South East Asia will be gathering here at Youth Empowerment Summit (YES) slated to begin on December 14 to discuss country networks on promoting youth employment and entrepreneurship.

The Hyderabad YES Regional Forum-2003, an initiative of Education Development Centre Inc, will prepare a blue print for strategies that equip the youth with self-supporting tools.

At the Alexandria Summit held in September 2002, the delegates resolved to run a decade-long global campaign for the creation of huge employment opportunities. Referred to as the `Alexandria Declaration,' it called for concerted efforts by civil society to empower youth to become "artisans of their own future."

"There are about one billion youths on the globe, with 85 per cent of them living in the developing countries," Ms Poonam Ahluwalia, Executive Director of YES Campaign, said.

Addressing a press conference here, she said: "when bulk of the youths do not have productive employment, they tend to drift towards non-productive things."

The YES campaign focussed on education for work and transition to work, private sector partnership and rural development, information and communication technologies, entrepreneurship for economic, social and environmental development.

To be inaugurated by Mr N. Chandrababu Naidu, the caretaker Chief Minister, the forum would have a galaxy of speakers, including Dr M.S. Swaminathan, Dr Shanta Sinha of MV Foundation and winner of Magsaysay award, Ms Shabana Azmi and Mr Ramalinga Raju of Satyam.

Ms Azmi will speak on `Special challenge of equitable employment for young women,' while Mr Raju will take part in the roundtable on `Business and youth working together to meet corporate social responsibility.

Dr Swaminathan will deliver a lecture on `On-farm and off-farm enterprises: Growth sectors for youth livelihoods.'

The agenda for the Hyderabad forum includes discussion on `Social entrepreneurship: Building youth leadership for community development and YES Country Networks: Defining their country's development agenda.

Marking the event, the YES Campaign will be launching a global YES Academy here to take research and pilot projects.

Ms Chandana Khan, Principal Secretary (Youth Advancement, Tourism and Culture), Government of Andhra Pradesh, said the Tourism Department would hold a Yuva Mela, which would seem youths from the State performing cultural shows for the benefit of the visiting foreign delegates on the Necklace Road.

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