Sharmila Ganesan | TNN
Mumbai: Asking for peace is likely to win you a crown at a beauty pageant. But it’s the act of “giving peace’’ that will really make the difference in these turbulent times. This philosophy, propagated by members of Rotaract, the youth wing of the Rotary Club in Mumbai, will find concrete expression this Sunday in a first-of-its-kind peace tour across the length of the city.
Taking a decision to declare the first Sunday of every year as World Responsible Youth Day—responsibility in youth being almost mythical today—Rotaract District 3140, which covers the Mumbai region, will launch its mission on Jan 4. Four hundred club members atop a truck and in four cars will undertake the day-long peace tour from Marine Drive to Navi Mumbai, halting at Dadar, Andheri, Ghatkopar and Thane before finally reaching Chembur. The tour will be dotted with musical performances and street plays, enacted by the club members of HR and SIES colleges, in an effort to coax their contemporaries into action.
At each halt, the head of the host club will field socially relevant extempore questions from the crowd such as how to file a public interest litigation. “We are even trying to get RTI activists for the rally,’’ says Shrenik Gandhi of the Ghatkopar Rotaract club, adding that the peace tour is one of the biggest district projects of the club so far. The members will be joined by the Rotary, Innerwheel and Interact movements.
This event is the second step the Rotaract movement is undertaking towards this cause after a panel discussion called The Summit that was held on December 14 last year. The preparation for World Responsible Youth Day, says Yaman Banerji of Thane club, began at a panel discussion in November. “We had earlier decided that the theme for 2009 would be ‘Go green’, and had based our material on the same, decrying the use of firecrackers and the like.’’ But 26/11 changed their plan and shifted the focus from the bombs that clog the lungs of kids in Sivakasi to those that left lasting scars on the city in November. “We have collated information from different resources to present an honest account of what happened on 26/11,’’ says Jigar Mehta, another member of the Ghatkopar club. “We want peace,’’ he adds, as an afterthought, hoping that every day will be not just Sunday but also a responsible youth day to boot.
sharmila.ganesan@timesgroup.com
Mumbai: Asking for peace is likely to win you a crown at a beauty pageant. But it’s the act of “giving peace’’ that will really make the difference in these turbulent times. This philosophy, propagated by members of Rotaract, the youth wing of the Rotary Club in Mumbai, will find concrete expression this Sunday in a first-of-its-kind peace tour across the length of the city.
Taking a decision to declare the first Sunday of every year as World Responsible Youth Day—responsibility in youth being almost mythical today—Rotaract District 3140, which covers the Mumbai region, will launch its mission on Jan 4. Four hundred club members atop a truck and in four cars will undertake the day-long peace tour from Marine Drive to Navi Mumbai, halting at Dadar, Andheri, Ghatkopar and Thane before finally reaching Chembur. The tour will be dotted with musical performances and street plays, enacted by the club members of HR and SIES colleges, in an effort to coax their contemporaries into action.
At each halt, the head of the host club will field socially relevant extempore questions from the crowd such as how to file a public interest litigation. “We are even trying to get RTI activists for the rally,’’ says Shrenik Gandhi of the Ghatkopar Rotaract club, adding that the peace tour is one of the biggest district projects of the club so far. The members will be joined by the Rotary, Innerwheel and Interact movements.
This event is the second step the Rotaract movement is undertaking towards this cause after a panel discussion called The Summit that was held on December 14 last year. The preparation for World Responsible Youth Day, says Yaman Banerji of Thane club, began at a panel discussion in November. “We had earlier decided that the theme for 2009 would be ‘Go green’, and had based our material on the same, decrying the use of firecrackers and the like.’’ But 26/11 changed their plan and shifted the focus from the bombs that clog the lungs of kids in Sivakasi to those that left lasting scars on the city in November. “We have collated information from different resources to present an honest account of what happened on 26/11,’’ says Jigar Mehta, another member of the Ghatkopar club. “We want peace,’’ he adds, as an afterthought, hoping that every day will be not just Sunday but also a responsible youth day to boot.
sharmila.ganesan@timesgroup.com
GEARING UP: Members of Rotaract Club of SIES rehearse for the peace tour on Sunday
Posts
1 comment:
How did this turn out?
Post a Comment