People’s past encounters are vital threads that intertwine to form a stitch-work which defines their life’s fabric. The realization that the sharing of these threads serves to both teach and inspire, has driven a passionate group of youngsters to create and launch a completely new and unique website.
‘theyounghistorians.com’ offers young people a platform to write about whatever they have experienced in their life, be it something they have been through or even just seen. It also provides its readers with the possibility of being either moved or motivated by these experiences.
Fayaz Mahroof (23), one of the members of the younghistorians team, says that he and his colleagues wanted to remove all the barriers which might impede the writing freedom of those who posted their stories on the site.
“The site allows people to write and post their stories in the language they feel most comfortable with, be it English, Tamil or Sinhala. There are also no strict rules for perfect grammar or even that the story has to be written by you,” Fayaz explains.
His colleague, Ahamed Yoosuf (19) explains that this policy frees people of their inhibitions and fears while writing and also ensures that their message is properly conveyed.
“When they write in their own language, without having to worry about grammar, as long as their statements make sense, then we feel they will be more comfortable sharing their experiences,” Ahamed says.
In fact the few guidelines that someone who writes in has to follow only insist that they avoid addressing the themes of religion, politics or sex and be between the ages of 15 to 19.
“We launched the site this month at the Annual Convention of the Sri Lanka Model United Nations and were able to brief the large number of young people gathered there about our initiative.
The following day the site got about 500 hits and a lot of new material,” Sudrake Fernando, another of the group’s members, expresses with visible delight.
The site had existed as a concept in Fayaz’s and his friends’ minds for several months before they finally decided to execute it. The implementation of their idea was something that was not as hard as they thought it to be, and within a month it was up and running.
Fayaz mentions that their site also creates a forum to discuss the relevant issues each article brings to light. “Each article has near it an area allocated for its viewers to post their comments, which the writer is free to respond to. It is also possible to rate each entry as well as link it to several social networking sites,” Fayaz elaborates.
The three young men reveal that they plan to take their idea to schools, to convince students of the importance of writing in and expressing their individual views.
“No two people are the same and each person has their own story and their unique way of sharing it. In schools in particular kids are always taught to be a part of the group and we want to encourage them to think for themselves,” Fayaz expresses.
For this purpose the younghistorians team plans to go out to a number of schools to promote their site, with their final objective being creating awareness of it amongst every school in the country.
This is an ambitious feat but one that does not seem implausible given the focused exuberance of this energetic young bunch.
The address for the website is www.theyounghistorians.com and to get more information about the initiative join the young historians group on Facebook. |
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