Leadership Village - a successful Indian Village story

Wayanad

On November 1,1980, the state of Kerala witnessed birth of a new promised land. On this day, Wayand – a place bestowed with nature’s bounty, was declared as the 12th district of Kerala. A land of deep rooted culture, electrifying myths, rugged terrains resembling wild west movies, a green canopy of tropical forests swaying to spicy winds, megalithic carvings on rock formations– a mystical land indeed. Wayanad boasts some of the highest hill ranges in the state and the Winding hairpin bends and ridges make the journey up the ranges an exciting experience

Located 700 – 2100 ers above sea level, Wayanad is strategically positioned among the states of Karnataka, Tamilnadu and its motherland, Kerala. Wayand also shares borders with seven districts of three states namely Kozhikode, Malappuram and Kannoor in Kerala, Mysore, Kudaku, Chamaraj Nagar in Karnataka and Neelgiri in Tamilnadu. A strange land with diverse geographical and topographical features, a place of paradoxes facefeatures welcomes you for a much rewarding peep into a strange and successful inspirational story.

Leadership Village YLP

Leadership Village YLP ( Young Leaders Programme) was born out of a passion to empower the villages of Wayanad with inspirational leadership training based on training strategies on par with global standards. Leadership Village YLP strives to create the first "leadership Democracy" ever in the world in Wayanad. It is undertaken with the support of villagers, students, parents, teachers, and civic associations.The vision of Leadership Village YLP would bring in a revolutionary change - a change that can only be achieved when the young generation is pointed towards their true potential and when they are shown the true change they could create in themselves and in their communities.

Founders

Leadership Village YLP was founded by Laila Saein (Chief Editor - facefeatures), Sangeeth Varghese (founder-LeadCap Trust) and Anil Emage (founder-AFRC). The project is dynamically catapulted to many corners of Wayanad with the path breaking leadership initiatives of school children and Young Leaders of the project. The YLPs of the project are Remeez Roshan, Pooja Raj and Ramsheena who are well trained and now train children of other schools as part of Leadership Village Young Leaders training programs.

A village success story

What makes Leadership Village interesting and inspiring? The entire success story is based on the concept of democratizing leadership and the core vision of leadership followed by the promoters is "leadership is a decision" and anyone can be a leader once he/she makes a strong decision to make a change.

Leadership Village was launched in 2009, which was inaugurated by Mr.Shreyamskumar, member of legislative assembly.

Leadership Village is based on two simple concepts:

Leadership Libraries: Is essentially a small village library of leadership and motivational books, gathered from across the world through book collection drives and donations. But the real concept revolves around weekend discussions, where the village youth gather and one person narrates the learning from a book that he has read. That way, every week, someone or a team of two or three people would have read a book and would have passed on the knowledge to several others.

Living Libraries: Monthly meetings, where experts from various realms are invited to the village to have dialogues and conversations. These experts share with the villagers their initial struggles and how they surmounted them. These are again expected to expand the villager's horizons.

Focus

ndividuals 15-25 years oldEmpowerment of these individuals through creation of self-awareness - that leadership is not reserved for a select few, but for everyone who wants to discover their true potential; that leadership is a personal decision, rather than a position or a set of skillsHaving achieved this self-awareness, we shall mentor these individuals to help them discover their hidden skills – in the areas of communication, self-motivation, problem solving, decision making etc.In the next step, we shall enable these self-aware leaders in conceptualizing and implementing larger causes that can value-add to the society