Engagement with the younger generation will play a crucial role in designing the future of urban India. Presently every third person in India is a youngster making us the youngest nation in the world. There is need to generate awareness among the youth on issues of urbanisation so that they can take ownership and responsibility for the current state of the environment. The need of the hour is to adopt innovative approaches and tools to sensitise the youth.

The nation-wide Community Led Environment Action Network (CLEAN-India) programme of Development Alternatives (DA) that works with youth and school children of urban communities to make them environmentally aware and active has risen to this challenge. The underlying principle of the CLEAN-India programme is that each one of us is responsible for the current state of the environment in our country and we cannot wait for someone else to solve the problem. With this basic premise, the CLEAN-India programme trains youth brigades to become environmental activists by turning them into agents of change for building sustainable societies and creating a global impact while acting at the local level.

To promote positive urban development, CLEAN-India has launched ‘The City I Want’ campaign in June 2014. This is a youth led social media campaign for improving the current environmental situation of our cities. The youth of the cities are being targeted to identify and articulate pressing urban issues, propose solutions and commit to taking actions for a better tomorrow. The campaign aims to initiate forward thinking on:

Development Alternatives has collaborated with World Urban Campaign which is a global partnership platform promoting dialogue, sharing and learning about how to improve our urban future. ‘The City I Want’ campaign is based on a 4 As methodology of Assessment, Awareness, Action and Advocacy. The youth of the city first assess the environment situation, then create awareness about problems and solutions, take action on the ground and finally advocate the solutions to urban local bodies.

The engagement with youth in this campaign will be through social media and each city will have a city specific page where the youth can post concerns, solutions and actions taken by them to solve their city’s urbanisation problems. In each city, a group of CLEAN-India City Changers will be formed who will act and engage with the people to bring a change in their city. The youth will get support from the CLEAN-India programme for assessing the problems, designing solutions and taking action for bringing change in their cities. The City Changers at the end of the one year campaign will come up with a recommendation paper for advocating solutions for urbanisation problems in their cities. ‘The City I Want’ campaign will culminate through a city level event where the most motivated city changer and the most innovative action will be facilitated. The culmination event will be carried out in association with relevant local stakeholders.

In these three cities, an assessment was carried out with the youth through a small questionnaire to understand the environmental concerns specific to their cities. The assessment report was shared through the city specific facebook pages and media coverage to make the youth and citizens of the cities aware about the current state of their cities’ environment. In each of the cities, the campaign is being supported by various CSOs, schools, colleges, ULBs and the media.

The response from the youth of the 3 cities in the last two months has been immense. Around 500 youth have liked the initiative running in their cities. This campaign will be launched in another 7 cities by the end of August this year.

The present day youth know that this is not the time to sit back and expect things to change by themselves. They have the energy and potential to be effective change makers. This campaign aims to empower the youth so that they become ambassadors for positive urbanisation and sustainable growth in their cities.