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Magazine
WINDS OF CHANGE
Igniting lives and imagination
MADHU GURUNG
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Using her own experiences as a guide, a young lawyer, Hekani Jakhalu has given the youth of Nagaland a chance to make their aspirations come true.
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Photo: Madhu Gurung
Building a platform for youth: Hekani Jakhalu.
Hekani Jakhalu, a young lawyer, has ignited the lives and imagination of young Nagas across her State like never before. For the first time in this insurgency-ridden State, the youth are coming together in partnership with the government to share the
ir aspirations, their hopes and dreams for the future. Hekani’s personal journey away from her homeland, and eventual return, was to shape an optimistic youth movement that has its roots in Delhi.
Slim, with shoulder-length hair and a ready smile, Hekani can pass off as any young charming woman from the Northeast. But that is where the popular perception ends. Her words are clipped and direct, used with the precise economy of a lawyer, and her accent North Indian.
Hekani studied in Bishop Cotton, Bangalore, after which she majored in political science from Lady Shri Ram and gravitated to do law from Delhi University. Passing out in 1998, she “worked for three years in the High Court and those were historical times as there were major amendments on rape and sexual assault laws. It was a major learning experience as it involved research and lobbying with different groups.”
A tuition scholarship got her to the U.S. where she joined an adjunct faculty at the American university in Washington DC. It helped her dabble in different things like doing research for Amnesty International and intern at the United Nations Headquarters in New York on the status of women. She returned to Delhi to start a new law firm with two other partners.
New insights
It was 13 months after she quit the law firm and found herself at a crossroad in her life that she began noticing an exodus of young people from the Northeast working in service sectors, hospitality and BPOs. “I had been a Delhite for 13 years so I was well versed with the attitude the young people from Northeast have to face in Delhi. I did my college here, worked here and have a good set of friends, but there was always some degree of discrimination, painful comments like if you are chinky you are ‘fast’. I also knew that if despite my education I faced this, then the young people in service sectors were likely to be exploited more.”
Hekani admits that these young people who flood the service sectors are sent by the State government as there are no employment avenues back home. She felt it was important to find out what their life was like in the metros. She decided to do a study. With this in mind, Hekani approached Nagaland MPs in Delhi, and after a go ahead from Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio, she homed in on graduate students from the Northeast to help her in the survey.
“With help from friends from the Action Aid and Amnesty International, we prepared a questionnaire. They also came in to do a two-day orientation programme with the students as it was to be done with utmost sensitivity. We had divided Delhi into zones and satellite cities. We did it continuously for five days and covered 500 people working in different service sectors, hotels, restaurants, BPOs. The study found exactly what I had perceived. Most of the people were in their early twenties and like all young people, they came with big dreams. The survey showed that initially they were guarded and lived in communities, but the city’s fast ways often preyed on girls who were naïve and simple and often in danger of being exploited.”
The study also revealed that most people from the Northeast found the customers condescending towards them, although their employers said it was a pleasure to have them as they were hard working and reliable. However, Hekani was quick to point out that the survey showed that there was no job growth for the young as they were not qualified to do anything else, and worse, there was nothing back home by way of employment for them.
It was this Catch 22 situation that Hekani said became the turning point in her crossroad in life. Armed with details of the study, Hekani went back to Kohima, determined to work with the government. “I told the government that they had to stop sending out young people in such huge numbers as the environment in cities was hostile with little avenues to growth unless they gave better quality training. The government asked me to do another study to see what needed to be done.”
“People thought that as we had the State’s funding we would not go against it, but we were determined to bring out the truth. We told the government that unless the young people were first trained on long duration courses before beginning to work, they would just stagnate as they had no avenues, nor qualifications, to grow and better their lives. Based on our intervention the government took heed and now there is more emphasis on longer courses and better training.”
The study, Hekani admits, was the starting point that gave her direction. In February 2006 she launched Youth Net, determined to make it a platform for the young. Her eyes sparkle with energy when she talks about the organisation, calling it “A platform for the youth to network and lobby with the government. We wanted to start a youth movement where there is active citizenship but we find now that it has become everyone’s movement.” Youth Net’s very first baby was to herald in the Right to Information Act in Nagaland.
Under the Youth Employment Campaign launched in 2002 by Bill Clinton and Suzanne Mubarak (wife of Hussain Mubarak), Youth Net became a part of a global, decade-long campaign. Hekani attended their third Summit in Kenya and since coming back has been working relentlessly to take the Campaign forward in Nagaland.
With no time for her own personal life, Hekani laughs and says that to support herself she continues to work as a lawyer and cannot afford a salary, lives with her parents and says, “not yet” to marriage.
Working in partnership with the State government, the Campaign, as the name suggests, is committed to providing employment to the youth. “The government had declared 2004 to 2006 as the years of youth empowerment but nothing substantial happened. We told the government that was because they had not asked the youth what they wanted, what their aspirations and dreams were. You cannot have bureaucrats with set mindsets deciding what the youth want. The youth did not even have a say. So we said that that there had to be consultations with youth leaders in all of Nagaland’s 11 districts.”
Vital feedback
Travelling across Nagaland with a group of 12 facilitators, Hekani and her team have documented every meeting with youth leaders and their group, noting their problems, strength, aspirations and hopes for the future. These consultations, Hekani points out, have created a bank of ideas. “The Nagaland government is in the process of drafting a youth policy and what has emerged from these consultations will in a major way shape this policy. For the first time the government will have a mandate for the youth themselves. Everyone is waiting and watching and the pressure is on us. People want to see results so we are also identifying projects that can be run by the youth besides drawing up the financial and technical assistance needed.”
Hekani’s eyes sparkle as she adds, “We are a very under-developed State. We want a more peaceful environment, insurgency addressed and a State that is corruption free. We want more private sector companies to make Nagaland their base. Our people are very hard working, talented but misguided. I am hopeful that Nagaland will be an example of what youth intervention can do to a State.”
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