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India is young. Seventy per-cent of our population consists of young people below 35 years. Of this 55 per-cent is below 25 years.  Yet the country is ruled by people old both in age and thinking. The age-old traditions, customs, rituals based on caste, colour and language still condition the minds of people and control their lives. Despite the advancement of science and technology, primitive and superstitious practices are practiced even by the most elite and modern sections of society. The educated population is not able to recognize the god-men and religious preachers who run their religious industry through their regular supply of drugs, i.e, institutionalised and commercialized religion. Politicians with vested interest exploit and divide people on the basis of caste, language and regions.

The youth is the most vulnerable section of society who are exploited by religious fundamentalists, militant forces and politicians. A large number of them are misused and manipulated to shout slogans in streets, organize protest rallies, commit violence and even involved in bomb blasts. Another section of youth becomes victims of negative influence of media.

They become addicted to the negative use of internet and Face book. There is yet another group that is totally preoccupied and obsessed with their career and personal ambition to become completely indifferent to social and political issues. This highly ambitious group of young people become so selfish that they only think of ‘milking’ the nation without any responsibility and commitment to country and society.

The root cause of all the problems which the young people face today is lack of vision and focus in life. Neither parents nor teachers are capable of instilling in them a lasting and inclusive vision of life. Once they have formulated their vision of life they would be able to make right choices in life. With the help of such a lasting and broad vision of life youth will be able to withstand the inluence of divisive and destructive forces. They will not be victims of blind imitation, instead they will safeguard God-given originality and nurture it. Unfortunately, neither does our teachers and parents have the competence for this important task nor our education system provides any scope for this important aspect.

Today the number of IITs, IIMs and other professional institutes are burgeoning. Hundreds of schools are being set up with palatial infrastructure and other attractive facilities of international style. Yet these institutions are not successful in developing both competence and character of young students. As the number of these professional institutions and the students who come out of them increase, the quality and excellence do not go up proportionately. Why do so many hundreds of young students of these institutions commit suicide? Why are they not able to accept even small failures and setbacks? Why do many young people of these institutions indulge in violence leading to murder and atrocities on women? Why do many smart young students of these institutions fall into the traps laid by militant groups and fundamentalists and use their competence for destructive purpose?  Why do hundreds of young people become slaves to the corrupt politicians and shout slogans for them without gaining anything in return, except false promises? These politicians only promote their sons and daughters to occupy positions of power, fooling the public.

The most precious wealth of the country, i.e. the youth, is perishing. Time is running out and running out faster than ever. The country will suffer a great tragedy if we do not prevent the destruction and misuse of our youth force. Millions of youth are at our disposal through our various institutions both in the urban and rural regions all over India. They are more precious than diamonds. All that we have to do is to mine and polish them to shine the God-given qualities in them. The Church in India is blessed by an abundance of a talented workforce in the form of dynamic and youthful priests and religious. Instead of placing them to maintain our many dilapidated, unproductive structures we should entrust them with this unique mission of mining the diamonds readily available in our institutions and polish them through a process of mentoring. This is an important and urgent mission which God wants us to accomplish. It is not an option, but an imperative.

Dioceses and congregations are eager to expand their schools, hostels, and other ministries. They send out many members to work in foreign countries. Many congregations run outdated and unproductive activities engaging their precious human and financial resources. Why don’t dioceses and congregations evaluate these unproductive missions and close them so that they can have enough personnel for this urgent mission of polishing the precious gems, the youth?
Why can’t we have full time personnel for value education and youth animation?

Every school has full-time staff for sports, games, dance, music and other activities. Why don’t we appoint a person fulltime for value education and animation of youth? Congregations and dioceses train their members for various subjects. Do we train some persons for taking up fulltime value education and animation of the youth? All of us are very eager to get excellence in academics, sports and cultural activities? Why don’t we have a serious program when it comes to character formation? The traditional methods of retreats and value education, imparted though some text books by teachers who do not practice those values, do not benefit the youth. Modern youth is the ‘new wine’ and as Jesus had warned us two thousand years ago we need to have ‘new wineskin’ to contain the ‘new wine’. Since we try to put the new wine in old wineskins, the wine is wasted through various ways such as suicides, violence, selfishness, indifference and corruption.

The best way is to identify some religious and priests who have passion for building the youth and equip them with training to take up this ministry. They would co-ordinate the value education and youth animation in the schools and other institutions where there are young students. This will be a fulltime mission. They could work as a full time co-ordinator of one school or for a number of schools in a diocese or province. The best persons with talent and maturity should be given this job. People who are free from other responsibilities due to retirement or other reasons may not be suitable to play the role of ‘new wineskin’. They should be people who can contain the ‘new wine’ generation with all its complications and complexes.

I write these lines because of my concern for the youth force which can provide an alternative to the present chaotic and corrupt system. I am also concerned about the indifference of consecrated people to their mission of “bearing lasting fruit”, instead of being preoccupied by petty priorities, prejudices, loyalties and even conflicts.  During my ministry with the youth over the last 33 years I have seen how the diamonds could be polished. The young are most willing to take up challenges and make sacrifices for noble causes. When they are helped to set their goals and priorities they are firm in keeping the promises they make.

The young people, who receive orientation in special leadership training in USM community, gladly give up their addiction to junk foods, mobile phones and Facebook. They sacrifice their birthday celebrations and save money for the education of poor children. They learn to practice time management for productive use such as reading useful books. They develop order and self-discipline in life.

Week after week, from the month of January to December, groups of young students of different schools come from all parts of India to the USM community for enlightened leadership training. They share the life of the community for a week and go through a rigorous training schedule. The transformation which happens in the lives of these students makes this program so popular that schools reserve the dates a year previous for their students. In many schools there is so much demand for this program both from students and parents the principals are forced to book for two separate groups. Principals of the schools make time to accompany the groups with a couple of teachers. USM may be the only place in the country where students come for-a week-long training during school days- throughout the year skipping their classes. This only proves the fact that the youth is ready for transformation.

Thousands of students, of various schools, from 16 states of India remind us of the seriousness of our mission with this most important section of society. Seeing the positive impact in terms of bearing fruit I feel that it is the most important and urgent mission before us. In such a fast changing world it is this section of the society which is the most vulnerable. All of us need to hurry up and use our maximum resources, because the diamonds are perishing...!!!

- Fr. Varghese Alengaden, Indore

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