A Finger in Every Pie – RTI, Higher Education and Student Activism

The New Indian Express: Chennai: Monday, August 18, 2014.

Suhail Kottakkal who is currently pursuing Master’s in Development Management from Madras School of Social Work, Chennai, is the General Secretary of Dreamers India, which he started in 2011, at Kottakkal, Malappuram, Kerala. It aims at promoting adolescent development by inviting students for social activism. He is also the campus coordinator of People’s Initiative for RTI, Kerala.

Students from reputed institutes like Jawaharlal Nehru University, Aligarh Muslim University, Delhi University, Madras School of Social Work, Delhi School of Social Work, Indian Institute of Mass Communication and Pondicherry University are a part of the volunteer student network, he says.

Their programmes include Be Plus, a higher education development programme for students who have finished class XII or graduation and are willing to continue studies in Social Sciences. Members from the student network counsel the newcomers and help them get admissions. They also arrange for sponsors and scholarships to help students from an economically weak background.

Learn India is a three-day camp to make newcomers socially aware. Students are introduced to different areas such as RTI, Public Health, Governance, Law, Environment and organic farming by experts in their respective fields.

Knowledge Hunters is another programme where students from villages are motivated to pursue higher education, in which parents and families are also counselled. Students are also encouraged to file RTIs and, occasionally, workshops are also conducted for them on how to go about it.

Asked what motivated him to start the organisation, he says, “I started the Dreamers India when I was 12 years old from a village library of a youth club named Da’wa Youth Centre. When I was around 16, I realised that there is no organisation for adolescents. Adolescence is a time for transformation in every individual’s life. The future of this country depends on the young.”

He continues saying, “While I was doing my Bachelor’s in Sociology, I shared the concept of Dreamers India.”

He points out that after starting Dreamer’s India, he could work with various social movements in Kerala such as Nalla Bhakshana Prasthanam (Good Food Movement), Edappal; Chandra Kantham, Nilambur; Youth for Environment and Justice, Jaiva Karshaka Samithi, and National Alliance of People’s Movements, Kerala.

“I believe that every community has the right to be developed and that should ensure sustainability and self-sufficiency. India lacks development activism,” he says.

Development should always be participatory and sustainable, he says. It should be inclusive and strictly based on needs, not greed. “In the existing system, development is centred around human beings. So the greed of human beings leads to exploitation of natural resources. But if development is environment-centric, it would be inclusive and sustainable,” he says.