• Thursday, March 28, 2024

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Obama: Leading by example

By: JurmoloyaRava

FORMER PRESIDENT INVITES YOUNG INDIANS TO ‘BUILD UP A COMMUNITY OF CHANGE’

By BARACK OBAMA
Former US president

ALMOST three years ago, I had the tremendous honour of being the first American president to join your [India’s] Republic Day.

India and the United States have so much in common – the US is home to millions of Indian Americans and their proud heritage is at the same time combined with an incredible contribution that they make in every field in the United States.

Both of our countries are hugely diverse. We’ve got different languages and different backgrounds and different ethnicities and different faiths, but what we also have in common is a set of values that we believe in deeply.

I believe the partnership between the world’s oldest democracy and the world’s largest democ­racy could be a defining one of the 21st century. I also believe that charting the course for that better future is going to depend on all of you – it’s going to depend on young people.

There are all sort of things that I care about, all sorts of specific issues that I’m going to continue to work on, and I plan to lend my voice and focus the rest of my career on them. I’ll be out there advocat­ing on behalf of doing something about climate change and doing something about inequality and making sure that women are getting the same op­portunities as men and fighting against the forces of discrimination and tribalism and racism.

But the single most important thing that I want to focus on is lifting up and identifying and working with and training the next generation of leadership, not just in the United States, but all around the world. That’s really the central goal of our founda­tion – it’s going to be based in Chicago, my home­town, but we want to have projects, programs, partnerships and digital networks everywhere.

I’m not just lending my name to the foundation, but I’m going to be an active part of it this year. I’ve already met with young people like yourselves in Germany, Indonesia and Brazil and we had our first ever Obama Foundation summit in Chicago. The reason it was so important to do something in India is you have got the largest population of young people in the world, so we might as well start big.

We’ve already identified some remarkable young leaders who are doing extraordinary things here in India; authors athletes, artists, entrepreneurs, civic leaders from all across the country. We’ve got activ­ists who are working on everything from education to gender equality to climate change.

A couple of young leaders were recently with us in Chicago – Trisha Shetty of She Says which edu­cates and empowers men and women to take ac­tion against sexual abuse; Sanchana Krishnan who works with communities to destigmatise mental health issues through the power of personal story­telling. Here in India, we’ve got young leaders like Kuldeep Dantewadia who is building this country’s first “solve squad” of 17,500 young people, who are driving change at the local level all across India.

The point is that these young people are already showing the power that anybody has if they take the initiative and have the courage to drive change and to make a difference.

There have never been more powerful more ac­cessible tools for each of you to make a difference than there are today. In fact, I would argue there’s never been a better time to be a young person.

As troubled as our politics are, the fact is that over the past 100 years, we’ve come from a world where only a small fraction of women could vote. We’ve cut extreme poverty and childhood mortality in half – much of that, by the way, in India and China since 2000. We’ve evolved from a world with­out marriage equality to one in which it’s a reality in more than two dozen countries.

The fact is the world has never been healthier. It has never been wealthier and despite terrible con­flicts still taking place around the world and remark­able cruelty and suffering, the world is actually less violent and more tolerant than it’s ever been.

More adults can read. More children have the vaccines they need, and the point is none of this happened just because of luck. It happened because people chose to make it happen and many of those people, working over the course of many years, started without power or wealth or title. And many of them were extraordinarily young, just like you.

That should inspire each of you to keep pushing for progress in whatever field and whatever com­munity you are in, knowing that your efforts matter. I hope that all of you stay engaged and are prepared to work with each other and with us and let other young leaders know about how we can continue to build up a community of change around the world.

That way, the next time I come back to India, you will be here waiting for me and you can tell me about all the amazing progress that you have al­ready made.

n Former US president Barack Obama was addressing young leaders from across India at a townhall event for his foundation in New Delhi last week.

[TheChamp-Sharing]

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