I continue to think of The YP Foundation as an organization in the present tense, and not really a figment of the past. I think it holds relevance to me personally, and certainly to my work today. I can say the same for many others whom I have known, worked with and interacted with over the course of my association with the organization.

I remember my first meeting at Tarini Barat’s house over 4 years ago, with team facilitator Harsh Malhotra, both of whom now alumni of the organization, and also dear friends today. To me this is the true relevance of TYPF – it creates lasting relationships and relevant situations for young people to converge and converse, and to create conventional, and sometimes exceptionally unconventional change.

I never believe in pivotal turning points in time, an “aha” moment – they is illusory. One of the key values I learnt during my time working with TYPF as a team member and staff member was perseverance. I worked in the Facilitative Branch (project on the Indian Education System), and as the Administrative Coordinator (2007-2008) with a host of projects. Subsequently to leaving the staff team, in 2008 I worked on another project of which I am very proud – a cultural exchange project with Afghan students in Delhi through film, art, literature and dialogue. TYPF gave me 100% freedom and creativity to source, compile and edit and design a 180-page magazine featuring work on the issue of “Understanding Afghanistan Today”. I can’t think of any other organization that would do that!

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I joined TYPF as a volunteer and later took over as The Coordinator of The Right to Information Branch. Nervous at first about heading a team of 15 volunteers- I didn’t realize how time flew. It was only yesterday that I had 15 wide-eyed faces staring back at me, trying to get a sense of what the project needed them to do.

A million trainings, meetings, conference calls, feedback sessions and the like later, came the workshops and discussion forum we had been working towards. It was suddenly a whirlwind of work! We didn’t realize the extent of the impact we were making, but we just kept going on, pushing ourselves and the team to do better.

It wasn’t until the end of the project that the realization of what we had achieved this year dawned upon us. It was then that emails and messages from the volunteers started pouring in, stating how much they had learnt from the project, how they suddenly realized why each meeting had been mandatory, how it felt so good when someone at the workshops looked back and thanked them for telling them how to file an RTI, how they could finally connect the dots. It was that realization, at that moment right there, that made all the sleepless nights, chaos and hard work worth it.

Working in this organization has made me discover and understand myself, my strengths and weaknesses, my likes and dislikes, my beliefs and politics, and most importantly- who I really am. It’s taught me much more than I can point out. It’s made me challenge myself and what I thought I was capable of.

Ila Reddy
Ex- Coordinator
The Right to Information Branch