Agenda for Survival is designed to build and nurture change makers who will lead the environmental movement of the future. This interdisciplinary course held each June, draws a lot of interest from youth of this country. It is open to young people with diverse educational background – at undergraduate level, or those doing their Masters, M. Phil, doctoral, post-doctoral studies. There is also a lot of interest for this course from young professionals working in non-governmental and not-for-profit organisations too. Students from diverse disciplines – engineering, liberal arts, law graduates to name a few – come in each year to share their experiences and learnings.

Like each year, 2013 ‘Agenda for Survival’, saw a bunch of 23 enthusiastic girls and boys attend the course. This is the sixth year of the course, 142 students – 63 boys and 79 girls – have taken the course. The total number of applications received this year was 40 and 25 candidates were short listed. There were two last minute drop outs because of the rescheduling of their exam dates. Thus 23 students - 14 boys and 9 girls completed the course. As in the previous years, this year too young people with diverse educational background attended the course.

The month long study culminates in participants writing, editing and designing a magazine of their own. This is also the highlight of the course as this is a learning process through which they learn to write / communicate in simple language. The assignment also helps them think and reproduce what they experienced during the field visit. Called ‘The Brink’ the magazine highlighted stories of the natural disaster experienced by the group and its (mis)management. They also developed a website with videos and blogs that the participants wrote regularly. See it here

The students saw a large number of films – Coal Curse by Paranjoy Guha Thakurta on coal mining scam; Faecal Attraction produced by CSE; Gur Prasad by Meera Dewan on food sharing; Counterbalance: How privatization of waste is affecting the life of waste recyclers.

The course had an overwhelming response. Those who took the course in their feedback session said that this indeed was one of the best courses they had ever done. They felt, unanimously, that it had a right mix of fun and learning and felt why regular college learning is not the same.

Shubham Sanjay Bohra: Knowledge and resource, networking truly satisfying, excited for a longer association with CSE, appreciate the sessions' content; flexible structure; may need a small change with selection of students, hostel sanitation and hygiene; Discussion with N C Saxena, Sanjay Upadhyay, Chandra Bhushan, Shivam Vij, Biraj Patnaik, Anurupa Roy; external speakers were more interactive, interesting and engaging than speakers from CSE.

Zaeen George de Souza: Field trip- really, really good; liked how all the country's policy issues were covered and that speakers with valid opinions were chosen. Land issues and tribal rights were brought to the forefront and the problem of equality and equity was highlighted very well.

B.Harikrishnan: As a civil servant aspirant I expected the course to deal with the basics of environment and related issues, but it was kind of more than that. It has made me think how our ignorance damages the environment.

Anand Sreekumar: I would be specialising later on in Development Studies, and wanted to get the crucial environmental link; the expectation has been more than met as this would be the bedrock of my thinking on development.