Founded at 15, the YP Foundation still hands Delhi's teenagers the microphone
The YP Foundation, started in 2002 by Ishita Chaudhry, funds and trains young people to lead their own projects across India.
Most youth organizations are run by adults who remember being young. The YP Foundation, in New Delhi, was started by someone who was still in the middle of it.
According to ComMutiny, a youth collective that profiles the group, the organization was founded in 2002 by Ishita Chaudhry “when she was 15 years old.” That detail rests on one published source, but the founding year and her role are consistent across several. Wikipedia dates the launch to July 2002, with support from the India Habitat Centre, and says it was incorporated as a charitable trust in 2007.
Two decades on, it describes itself as youth-led and youth-run. A RESURJ biography of Chaudhry says the foundation works with more than 350,000 young people from 18 Indian states, focusing on the leadership of young women and out-of-school adolescents, and on shaping policy so young people have access to information and services tied to their health and rights.
The program names read like civics with a sense of humor. ComMutiny lists Samvidhan LIVE!, Gender Jagrik, Peer Tutor, Changelooms and a Changelooms Climate strand, along with a Q-ki National Championship and a My Space My unManifesto project. Jagrik means aware or awake, which seems about right as a design brief.
The common thread, as Wikipedia describes it, is funding and equipping young people to plan and carry out their own projects, from performing and visual arts to literary and research work, workshops and policy advocacy. The topics span health equity, gender justice, sexuality rights and youth participation in India’s political system.
The honors came early. Wikipedia notes a 2006 SMILE fellowship, a 2007 Karmaveer Puraskaar for Chaudhry, and a 2008 Seen and Heard award from British Telecom and the UK Youth Parliament.
The point of a youth-run institution is that it keeps going after its founder grows up. Twenty-odd years in, this one has.
Contact: ComMutiny, which lists the group’s address in New Delhi, publishes the email info@commutiny.in.
