Youth Ki Awaaz™ which literally translates to voice of the youth in English, is an award winning and India’s largest online and mobile platform for young people to talk about and start conversations on issues of importance.
Making best use of online and mobile journalism, social media virality and new media tools, Youth Ki Awaaz has, since 2008, given voice to over 20,000 young people from across the country and has a readership of nearly 6 million people every month.
Youth Ki Awaaz also runs India’s first and only mobile platform for youth opinions that needs no smart phones or apps, goes beyond internet penetration and empowers people to share their opinions, and also take action by simply calling up 09310952952 and recording their opinions or report issues within 60 seconds.
Why was Youth Ki Awaaz Started?
Youth Ki Awaaz was started in 2008 as an instant reaction to the fact that the everyday youth does not have enough stake in the country’s problems, and there is no real avenue for free speech and mass recognition of open conversations. It has fast emerged as a citizen driven alternative to the mainline media for many young people, and continues to grow leaps and bounds.
How does Youth Ki Awaaz work?
Youth Ki Awaaz is driven by a participatory, user generated model where the opinions and topics are crowd-sourced. You are the readers and the writers, and user contributions stay at the very core of the platform.
Youth Ki Awaaz also runs an 8 week work-from-home program that aims at training and equipping young people with the right tools and skills to communicate and write better, and voice themselves in the best possible way on very crucial issues. The internship program was started in Jan 2010 and has trained over 1500 young people from across the country till date. It currently trains 30 young people over 8 weeks.
Have you had any official recognition?
2010:
Received the Best Blog for Social Causes, by IndiBlogger.
Received the United Nations GAID and ICNM run, World Summit Youth Award, for path-breaking e-content
2011:
Champions of Social Transformation, for Youth Empowerment, by the Baha’i Spiritual Assembly
2012:
United Nations, International Telecom Union, Young Innovators Award for innovation for social good using Information and Communication Technology.
How does Youth Ki Awaaz sustain itself?
Youth Ki Awaaz’s mission is to empower the everyday folks to raise their voices and opinions on the issues and causes they feel passionate for. We realize that a great methodology to achieve this is by combining the values of a non-profit and the innovation of a start-up. Our business model does more good, and creates more value while addressing some of the most crucial issues. We are a social good business that funds itself by helping social good organizations and non-profits reach out to and engage the Indian youth in their causes – through youthkiawaaz.com. We do this via various tools such as content driven campaigns, and our expertise on digital media virality.
For our partners, this is a great way to further their causes and what they believe in; and for our readers and users, this a great way to connect with some of the most impact driven organizations in the world.
Who all are in the Youth Ki Awaaz core team?
