About Organization:
Founded in the year 2000 by school friends as youth club and registered in the year 2011 The Blue Ribbon Movement (BRM) is a 7 year old organization, co founded by Abhishek Thakore and Akshat Singhal.
It started with the idea: ‘‘Together, we are stronger’’ and a motto of ‘Green India, Great India’. After going into hibernation in 2005, Blue Ribbon was revived in 2009 with informal weekly meetings at Prithvi Cafe. Their initial projects were the BRM Mentoring Program and The Changemakers JAM. In late-2010, BRM was incorporated into a formal social enterprise.
Blue Ribbon organized Khoj, Mumbai’s biggest inter-school festival from 2000 to 2005. Starting with 1500 students from 20 schools in 2000 to over 5000 students from 45 schools was a journey to remember. The first Khoj was supported by Rotary Club of Dahisar and Rustomjee. It has also organized several projects including Prayaas (a week of intense community service – donation and cleanliness drives, integration walks, visits to orphanages and old age homes), TREES (tree plantation, awareness), Model UN Assembly, BlueTal (talent competition) and weekly meetings with projects.
Today, BRM harnesses the power of collective action through an evolving ecosystem of social initiatives aimed at personal growth, building leadership and social transformation. Its mission is to empower youth to become leaders of change through community work.
South Asian Youth Conference is one of the programs founded by the Blue Ribbon Movement. The idea is to create leadership in a region, which shares deep historical and cultural roots but finds itself divided because of the superficial political interests of a few. Starting in 2011, Bangalore(India), with support from Peace Child International and IIM Bangalore, SAYC has traveled to Islamabad (2012), Kathmandu (2013), Colombo (2015), Kabul (2017), Mumbai (2018). In the years it has not been held in-person, we have hosted SAYC online and groups have met and connected with each other virtually. The online conferences have been held in 2014, 2016, 2019, and 2020.
We intend to take the conference to other South Asian countries and we are happy to partner with other organizations to host SAYC 2021.