Youth Group tries to make a difference

 

With a mission to ‘inspire youth to take ownership of their community through youth-based volunteerism and channel their potential into socially meaningful actions’ a youth group called Go Youth Go (GYG) have conducted community services which has socially useful results for the communities and places.

For instance the group has renovated a chorten on the way to Phajoding monastery, helped patients at the guest house of Thimphu national referral hospital (JDWNRH), donated blood and also participated in various public sessions.

With an Executive head, a board of directors, a management body and many staff members, the non-profit organization doesn’t face leadership problems as elections were held within the group to decide who would lead the organization for a term of 3 years.

The key aim of GYG is to keep the youth productively engaged to address social issues.

‘The GYG is such an inspiration to me. It makes me a better person and I realize that someone else’s happiness is my happiness. I love what I see in GYG, the spirit of volunteerism and optimism, the feeling of love and joy and most importantly the act of kindness and compassion for the needy ones. I will grow old eventually but I know GYG is going to keep me young and selfless till the end. GYG will always be my sunshine,” said one of the founding members of the group, Dechen Choden.

“GYG is doing great work especially in terms of keeping the youth meaningfully engaged,” said another founding member Tandin Pem.

All in all GYG is an example of what people strive to do but have always been held back due to lack of motivation. The group marked their anniversary a few days ago at the patient’s guest house and everyone was invited to it.

Local actor Tandin Sonam visited the event where he sang some of his popular songs and helped make the day a very special one.

GYG is a non-profit organization started by youths and led by the youths. It is a youth-leading-youth organization which was established by a handful of youths.

GYG is a voluntary youth-led organization founded on 17 April, 2012 by a group of young people to bring about enduring positive social change. The group has three networks (Thimphu, Paro and Kanglung) with its operations base in Thimphu. Today it has over 300 registered members (Students, out-of-school youth, in service people and foreigners).

GYG was founded by eight young people and they are Dechen Choden (Program Officer, Royal Society for Senior Citizens), Jigme Kuenga (Student, Philippines), Kencho Dorji (Student, Pelkhil School), Riku Dhan Subba (Asst. Information & Media Officer, Dept. of Youth & Sports), Tandin Pem (Program Officer at The Bhutan Foundation), Tashi Namgay (Founder/ ED, Bhutan Kidney Foundation), Tenzin Norden (Actress) and Wangchuk Dema (Student, Sherubtse College).

Jigme Sonam / Thimphu