About Youth for Accountable Governance

Youth for Accountable Governance is a not-for-profit organisation founded in April, 2018 at Guwahati, the capital city of Assam. Our goal is to secure a better deal for Assam politically, economically, socially.

The Idea behind its establishment

One day in a coffee shop we three friends, young professionals from different work fields, were having a good time over coffee. One was a hard-core political strategist and campaign planner, another was from the marketing and advertising sector of an MNC and the other one was a social worker. As we were meeting after three-four years we talked about many things from girlfriends, economic situation to political reforms of the state and its impact on the citizens of Assam, especially youth. During this conversation, we agreed that Assam has not been provided what it deserves. We analysed issues like unemployment, lack of infrastructure, shortage of higher educational institutions, poor healthcare facilities (especially in the rural sector), rising communalism in the last three years and sanitation for rural people. We decided that all these issues could be solved or classified by interacting or discussing these issues with the government directly. So, we fixed during that particular meeting that we should immediately contact the government officials or the concerned ministers. Interestingly, we agreed that we should contact the government and whatever we could provide or portray through our knowledge and experience we would do without taking a single penny for that from the government.

So, we prepared a presentation about these issues and their possible solutions. We fixed an appointment of a powerful minister of the state, whom we won’t name. We got 30 minutes out of his busy schedule, which wasn’t enough to make him understand the problems that are being faced by 80% of rural families and their children.

We met him in his office and we tried to suggest probable solutions or a roadmap to achieve the solution. After completion of the presentation, he looked at us and merely smiled. We found ourselves humiliated. Then we thought, it won’t happen as smoothly as we believed. But we also felt surprised that such a powerful minister, with a strong public image, could ignore such problems so easily.

After that situation we thought that our plan and thinking won’t be fulfilled if the government did not help us. We even discussed about going back to our own professional zones.

In the meantime, we saw an interview of an Opposition leader on television. He was addressing two or three issues affecting rural areas. After watching that interview we were shocked as 70% of the discussed issues were exactly what we had tried to present before the minister. Then we thought we should try to discuss the matter with him.

We got an appointment to meet him at his residence and we talked to him about all these issues and probable solutions. After that presentation he appreciated our initiative but requested us to do this kind of thing on our own and not through some third person. So, inspired by his enthusiasm and acting on his advice, we decided to start this work under the banner of a not-for-profit organisation. So this is how we founded our organisation Youth for Accountable Governance.