IAWW Youth Program

Mission
The Youth program offers you the opportunity to network with other Indo-American youth, share your experiences, and develop lasting friendships. The members of the Youth program takes on challenging projects including the organization of the IAWW Camp Bharat each year. The Youth program members can also apply for the position of Camp Counselors.

The IAWW Youth Program would like to announce completion of its 2011-2012 Youth Board selection. In response to queries by community members, we would like to outline the selection process for the year 2011-12 briefly for those interested:
1) Application to the Youth Program was posted online in the September/October timeframe.
2) Applicants' parents were required to be IAWW members in the current year for applicant to be eligible.
3) The application included a descriptive as well as an interview component. The descriptive component included short essay questions as well as information on extra curricular activities, potential conflicts with other activities and other demographic information. The rubric for the descriptive component was prepared by a panel of nuetral community members in which the Youth Program advisors played a significant role. Panel members with children applying to the program were asked to step out of the rubric preparation process (so as to not have any prior knowledge of questions in the application) to avoid any potential for bias.
4) Once the application was posted online, the panel then added the outgoing Youth Board officers, the IAWW President, the Program Director and Advisor/Associate Director (official score keeper but did not participate in scoring essays or interviews), as well as 2 community members with little history with the program. The panel members were requested to step out of the scoring process for the descriptive component and its discussion session if they had children applying to the program.
5) Applications received went through a process where names were eliminated and a numbering system was provided so that panel members scoring the application had no knowledge of the identity of the applicant (YB members who were eligible to reapply were not subject to this blind process as they were required to go through a process of re-evaluation).
6) Once scored, panel members met to select a group of applicants for the interview process. This step selected the top scorers in the descriptive component (giving credence to or including past YB work, gender, grade, contribution and involvement in IAWW, other activities that may prove to be a conflict in YB involvement ).
7) Each application was graded by at least 3-4 members.
8) The selection panel comprised of the Youth Program director, Youth Advisor(s), three Youth Board outgoing office bearers (all outgoing office bearers were invited to join the panel), the IAWW President as well as 2 community members with no affiliations to applicants in the pool. If the Youth Program directors or advisors or the IAWW President had children applying into the program, they were required to step out of the scoring and the discussion process where other criteria are considered. We did have the situation occur this year where members of the panel stepped out of the selection process for their family members and our incoming Director stepped out of the rubric setup as well as scoring process. The IAWW President stepped into the selection process only after her child was pre-elected as YB President.
9) The panel met at the end of the above process and consolidated all scores following which the required number of candidates were selected for an interview. The descriptive component did include not just the short answers and essay but also a component where the applicant's time at IAWW events and other service projects is considered.
10) Selected candidates were interviewed and scored by the selection panel with the same consideration of panelists stepping out of the process if their children or close friends were applicants.
11) Final selection was based on a qualitative analysis and quantitative scoring of each application. The panel conducted an intensive discussion session, based on scores from the descriptive and interview sessions, as well as qualitative analyses of several criteria, such as past IAWW Youth Program work, contribution and involvement in IAWW, other activities that may prove to be conflicts in YB involvement, grade, and gender (as we need to have a minimum number of YB members of each gender).

Youth Board Members

Officers

Program Director: Lalita Uppala
President: Tanvi Soans
Vice-President: Sneha Krishnan
Web Master/ Public Relations: Pranav Harikrishnan
Treasurer: Varun Chandorkar
Secretary: Kanika Verma

Other Members:
Aakash Maniyar, Aditya Uppala, Akarsh Vaidyanathan, Amar Kalkura, Amulya Deva, Archana Somasegar, Mahak Sodhi, Neha Singh, Nikita Sharma, Nivedita Jejurikar, Prachi Keni, Pranal Angolkar, Rohan Bhatt, Sahana Cidambi, Serena Ahuja, Shabina Ryan, Sheila Murthy, Shelly Bansal, Shivani Vyas, Shruti Joshi, Tanvi Gandham, Varun Bahl, Varun Dhananjaya, Vikram Reddy, Vinayak Sharma

Youth Board Advisors:
Bipasha Mukherjee
Rohita Shanker
Ronak Patel
Rakhi Wadera

Click here to see YB Member Biography

Republic Day

By: Tanvi Gandham and Prachi Keni

On January 28th, 2012, the IAWW Youth Board 2011-2012 congregated at Interlake High School at 4:00 pm to set up and prepare for IAWW’s Annual Republic Day Event. Families and performers of all sizes started filtering in around 5:00 pm, buzzing with excitement in anticipation of the fabulous night to come. The program featured renditions of classical songs and traditional dances, mixed with fashion shows and upbeat Bollywood routines. The Youth Board was fairly evenly dispersed throughout the event; Some were emceeing, while others were keeping things organized behind the scenes and in the green room. Yet others were selling refreshments, Samosa chaat, fried rice, and sambaar throughout the evening. The profits made from the food sales will go towards the Youth Boards funds. The Youth Board appreciates all the help we received from youth in the community, who are not currently involved in the Youth Board program. All in all, we considered the event to be a true success, providing a venue for the community to celebrate an important occasion in Indian History, and most importantly loads of fun for everyone involved.

TREEHOUSE:

By: Shelly Bensal

On the morning of February 4th, IAWW Youth Board volunteers made their way to the Treehouse Wearhouse on Rainier Avenue. Treehouse is an organization that takes in donations for clothes, school supplies, and toys, and makes them available to foster children throughout the Seattle area, free of charge or for very low costs. Kids visit the Wearhouse up to five times a year, and pick out clothing and items for themselves that they like and need. In an environment with little stability, Treehouse helps foster kids gives kids the resources that they need to feel good and fit in. First, we toured the Wearhouse. The extensive and well-organized back rooms with piles of donations, many of which were brand-new, were impressive. Our first project was organizing winter coats for children. We opened bundles of coats and shelved them neatly according to size and gender. It was a slightly repetitive task, but we turned the radio on and soon enough the shelves filled up with stacks of winter wear. When we’d opened all the bags, we moved on to sorting donations. Treehouse is an organization that can afford to be picky about the state of clothing that they distribute, thanks to their partnerships with organizations such as Goodwill. So, we searched donated clothes for tears, stains, signs of age, and other defects that might stop a child from wanting them. There were hundreds of donations to sort through—we were all amazed by the generosity of the community we live in. Though our team worked specifically in the Wearhouse, Treehouse organizes an extensive support system for foster kids, from providing scholarships for after-school programs to running a tutoring center so kids don’t get behind after an academic transition. You can find out more about Treehouse at their website, http://www.treehouse4kids.org/. For the next several weeks, QFCs around the state will be accepting donations for Treehouse at the checkstands. The IAWW Youth Board encourages you all to get involved with this fantastic organization, and we hope that you’ll enjoy it as much as we did.

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