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 Volunteer Ahmedabad, Indicorps & Research Foundation for Governance in
India have collaborated with the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation on a
Governance Project, as part of the Youth Leadership Course. The
duration of the progamme is six weeks, from 1 May to 15 June 2009.
The aim of the governance project is for the youth (between 18 to 25
years) to better understand overall structure of governance within the
country, with special emphasis on local governance and the processes
involved with the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC). Over the
course of the six-week programme, the participating youth would be
able learn about aspects of citizenship and democracy as well as about
the functioning of the AMC. As part of the project, they will also
contribute to the society by creating awareness about their learnings
to the local population as well as trying to solve their Corporation’s
work related problems.
The programme begins with a week-long introductory orientation course
for the participants in order that they better understand the basics
of national, state-level and local governance as well as about
fundamental rights, human rights and the Right to Information Act.
From the second week onwards, the team starts working in the field –
in different Ward Offices, City Civic Centres and Departments of the
AMC to understand various issues that the Corporation addresses day-to-
day. This involves: observing Ward officials at work, observing how
different department offices run, shadowing officials as they go into
the field to handle complaints/issues and how the complaints/issues
finally get resolved. For example, if the water department has to
handle a water leakage/shortage in the city, the participants
understand how water gets supplied to different parts of city, shadow
municipality workers addressing the problem in the field and in the
process, learn how other citizens with similar problems can be helped.
In the same way, the team also works with the City Civic Center to
understand the processes on which the Center functions and to raise
awareness in the city about the functions and workings of these
centres. The team also spends considerable time meeting and
interacting with different sections of the society about their needs
and problems.
The overall objective of the programme is to work as a platform for
the youth to understand the structure of our government and the
processes of governance better. It is imperative that students, at a
young age, understand our system and how it works so that they can be
active participants of an engaging democracy in future.
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