Vivekanand Swadhyay Mandal

Vivekanand Swadhyay Mandal is a nonprofit cultural organization, rooted in Indian philosophy and value system. VSM aims to inculcate leadership skills, boost human values and build national character in youth so that youth are exemplary human resource for India. It is based out of G. B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, India:.^[1] VSM primarily works with university students via different activities such as public speaking workshop, leadership hunt competition. VSM has also organized International and National level events, such as Manthan, national level conference and International Youth Conference, for professionals and college students.

Working Methodology

Students and teachers from the G. B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology form the core of VSM. The alumni also participates. The basic assumption of their methodology, which, they claim, is an easily replicable includes:

• Central importance of leadership development.
• The model that inculcates leadership in youth is the same as that of adults.
• Need of myriad learning approaches for different requirement of different people.
• Importance of diversity in a working group.
• The necessity of including the subject group for effective implementation.

A personal development cycle is defined by VSM consisting of three parts, viz. Introspection, Organization, and Evolution. There are different approach used to put people in this activity. They also suggest that these steps are not in fact discrete steps but have considerable overlap and are cyclic.

Introspection: It is the process of looking within oneself. In this process participants explore themselves to find their vision and set their goals. With multiple iterations, participant need to arrive at goal of life and its purposes.

Organize: To act towards desired goals, one needs pertinent skills. One has to cultivate the skills necessary for it and orient one's talent and tendencies towards specific set of skills. The organize is actually re-orientation and acquisition of new talent and tendencies.

Evolve: Evolution is progression in intellectual and proficiency sphere. With evolution, understanding of one's goal becomes better and clarity of thought increases. Working towards set goals results in further evolution in terms of proficiency.

VSM puts above stages in practical and cyclical terms as follows. In the introspection part, the volunteers regorge their formed memory to decide a roadmap and target for themselves. In the process of organization they search the required set of skills needed to approach their target and then engage in activities to acquire them. At the same time, in the part of evolution they engage in discussion and study to develop a deeper understanding of their goal. This further strengthens their capacity to reach their goals.^[2]

Activities

VSM organizes several activities throughout the year for all the student community in University campus such as^[3]

• Public Speaking workshop
• Sunday Seva Classes
• Study Circle
• Personality Development Workshop
• Guest Lecture
• Creativity Camps
• Daily Yoga and Mediation classes

Yuva Celebration

VSM celebrates Swami Vivekananda Jayanti(birth anniversary) every year in form of YUVA(youth) festival. YUVA is celebrated on few themes and all other events organized are around these themes. YUVA festival starts on 12 January and ends on 23 January. Few events in YUVA attract national level talent. YUVA gets participants from all over the country. 34 Universities participated in YUVA 2015^[4]

Notable personalities who graced YUVA festival include Sushri Nivedita Bhide, Dr H. C. Verma, Kailash Kher, Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, Dr Chinmaya Pandya, Swami Shantamananda, M Hanumantha Rao and Anshu Gupta, founder Goonj (NGO).^{[5][6][7][8][9]}

International Youth Conference

VSM has organized two International Youth Conference(IYC) as part of Yuva celebrations. The first IYC was organized on 149th jayanti and second IYC was organized on 150th jayanti of Swami Vivekananda.

Yuva 2013 IYC was organized on Shaping A Drudgery Free World - Swami Vivekananda's Perspective^[10][11] and Yuva 2012 IYC was organized on topic Integral Humanism. Almost 400 participants, who represented different institutes from India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Nepal, Uganda and Kenya, took part in Yuva 2012^[12]

Publications

• Shaping a Drudgery Free World^[13]
• Saving Humanity: Swami Vivekanand Perspective^[14]
• Motivational Leadership: Swami Vivekanand Way^[15]

External links

• Vivekananda Swadhyay Mandal
• Shaping the change agents of future
• Channelize the energy for constructive change

References