Christ College Humans Rights Fest 13 - 14 December, 2007

We lured in the crowd with games and chocolates. We organized three games – the Democracy Tree, the Choc-o-Bowl and the Speed Test . The Democracy Tree proved to be the crowd favourite. The Democracy Tree required the participants to assign correctly the functions of the three levels of the government; the union, state and the local to walk away with a chocolate. The Choc-o-Bowl was a bowl of questions; the participants picked a chit containing three questions each. The questions ranged from ‘What is the full form of BBMP?' to ‘What are parastatal agencies?'. The questions tested the youth's knowledge of the governance of their city. In the Speed Test the participants were faced with a volley of questions on local governance. To walk away with the prize the contestant was expected to answer at least 10 questions correctly in a minute.

The response from the students and the faculty was indeed overwhelming but the results were below par. The students were appeared to lack fundamental civic knowledge that governs their day-to-day life. The results highlighted the need for an organization like Janaagraha to draw out programmes to educate the youth on governance at the local, state and the central level. The youth are the future of our country and they have to be armed with the knowledge to step up to this responsibility. “Be the Change you Want to See”.