Mysore/Mysuru: Youths who are getting into the depths of alcoholism, those into drugs and bad company and youths facing depression owing to their family status and condition are being counselled to lead a normal life by Yuva Spandana Counsellors.

For such youths and their families, Yuva Spandana Kendra is a ray of hope and Counsellors usually counsel them to resume a normal life. In cases where intervention is necessary, the affected youths are directed towards de-addiction camps so that they can rise above their mental state to lead a happy life.

The functioning of Yuva Spandana Kendra was brought to the fore at the monthly meeting of the Mysore Grahakara Parishat (MGP) that was held recently under the topic ‘Role of Youth Consumer Clubs in Nation Building’ where resource person Lathamani, a voluntary worker (Yuva Parivarthakaru) from the Youth Counselling Centre, explained the nature of work done at the counselling centre.

Yuva Spandana is an initiative run by the Department of Youth Empowerment and Sports, Government of Karnataka. It is a boon to many youngsters struggling to gain a footing in life. This programme is youth-friendly, youth-sensitive, youth-oriented and youth-driven. The target age group of beneficiaries of the programme is 15 to 30 years.

Guidance centres

“Yuva Spandana provides support for any youth issue, be it behavioural, mental, social or psychosocial. This support is through guidance or counselling centres called Yuva Spandana Kendras, which are situated in every district,” she explained.

A wide range of issues have young minds worried and hassled these days. Like health and lifestyle issues, sexuality, gender problems, relationship issues, personality development insecurities and many more. Such youths reach out to Yuva Spandana and the team offers free counselling sessions, sometimes to their families too. If the need arises, the Counsellors direct them to higher centres of care, she said.

“We counsel and rehabilitate youths who face depression on account of family problems, relationship issues, addiction due to drugs and slowness in reading and grasping subjects. We help them by providing the right path through counselling. Nowadays, we come across several cases of disputes and disagreements in families particularly by the youths, leading to suicides, murders and failures in life,” Lathamani explained.

Call Helpline

The district centres including Mysuru have been actively involved in such counselling activities. If anyone comes across such cases, they can contact the district centre on Ph: 0821-2444922 or by email: [email protected]. Lathamani can be contacted on Mob: 89708-99453 for help.

Consumer Clubs

Another resource person at the MGP meeting was Basavaraju, Officer from District Yuva Kendra, Mysuru-Mandya, who said that the main purpose of the organisation is to invite younger generations to take up volunteer services in all walks of life.

“We motivate youths to form volunteer organisations like youth associations, NSS, Yuva Kendras, Yuvathi Mahila Mandalis for self-employment associations. Youths in the age group of 18 to 29 years can be in the groups,” he said.

Some of the activities to empower the youths include tailoring training, skill development etc., under the Prime Minister’s self-employment programme of start-ups. Volunteers are given an honorarium of Rs.5,000 to motivate their skills.

There are also consumer clubs formed from group members who can create awareness on consumer rights and the right to get quality materials.

“Such opportunities to the younger generation can create more local employment opportunities and prevent skilled youths from moving away to far off countries,” he explained.

“We also conduct Yuvajanotsava at the district-level to create more awareness about the opportunities available for the skilled, to develop their skills and empower themselves for self-employment. After training them, certificates are issued which will help them secure bank loans for their self-employment projects,” he said.

Basavaraju can be contacted on Mob: 94481-75487.

MGP President Dr. B.V. Shivamurthy, S.V. Raghavendra, K.V. Ramanath, V. Viswanathan, S.P.Nanappa, B. Choudhary, Kalpana Viswanathan, B.J. Jwala Suresh, Prof. V. Jagannathan and others were present.