First Swami Vivekananda Youth Leadership Summit Held By Suman Guha Mozumder

The need for Indian Americans to get more involved in local issues and take up challenges like hunger, poverty, homelessness and unemployment affecting the community they live in was stressed by speakers at the First Swami Vivekananda Youth Leadership Summit in Hanover Township, Northampton County, Pa. June 20.

This was the first time that such an event organized jointly by Indian-American Association of the Lehigh Valley and Hindu Temple Society of Allentown took place in the county.

The main focus of the daylong event was to help youth find their identities and strike a balance between the culture and tradition of India from where their parents came, and the country of their adoption which is the United States.

“The point we tried to drive home to the assembled youth at the summit was that while we have chosen to adopt this country as our home and in turn this great country has adopted us, giving us the freedom and opportunity to make this the best home it can be, we owe it to leave behind a legacy that future generations can be proud of. We along with our second generation must involve ourselves in the local welfare process,” Ashim Bhowmick, one of the key organizers and president of the IAALV, told Desi Talk.

The summit was named after Swami Vivekananda, a young monk from India who talked about Hinduism and India in his now famous “My brothers and sisters of America” speech at the world parliament of religion in Chicago in 1893, sought to educate and inspire second generation Indian Americans to lay strong foundations for the future of the globe. It also sought to develop leaders from among them so they become productive and conscientious global citizens.

Aryaman Khandelwal, a High School student gave a talk – ‘Your Choice, Your Life’, pointing out that out that the choices Indian-American youth have today are different from the ones their parents and grandparents had to make, talking about bullying and peer pressure that was not present in earlier times.

Vivekananda’s birthday January 12 is celebrated every year in India as the National Youth Day which is why the organizers named the youth event after the monk.
Speakers that included Professor Galen Godbey and others emphasized the importance of being ‘global-ready’ college graduates, drawing the attention of 35-odd young men and women to the importance of learning cultural diversity in the globalized world as also understanding the attitude toward diversity in the US.

‘Examine your life and the way your family treats the earth, and ask yourself and them if you can become better stewards of our natural inheritance. Think of those who will come after us, and commit yourself to fighting pollution of land, water, and soil … Do it because we want others who come after us to have a chance to fall in love with the everyday miracles of nature (and I think) Vivekananda would approve,’ Godbey said in his address.

“The attendance of youth was lower than expected mainly due to summer holidays in schools; nonetheless the excitement and enthusiasm about the event among the 80 people, including parents of children was evident, but we hope to have a better one next year” Bhowmick said