A nation is built by its citizens and citizens are moulded by their teachers. Chanakya rightly said, “Teacher is the maker of a nation”. The kind of nation India should be is envisioned in the Preamble of the Indian Constitution. When teachers are convinced by the vision of India as envisaged in the Preamble, they can then help their students to imbibe the core values of the Indian Constitution, thus making a significant contribution to the process of nation-building.

The core values of the Indian Constitution as delineated in the Preamble are 1) Sovereign socialist secular democratic republic, 2) Justice: social, economic and political, 3) Liberty of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship, 4) Equality of status and of opportunity, 5) Fraternity, 6) Dignity of the individual, and 7) Unity and integrity of the nation.

Along with helping students in their intellectual and emotional growth and skill development, teachers have a great responsibility to instil in students the core constitutional values mentioned above. Only then can they claim to be nation-builders.

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Families, and society in general, consider persons with certain disabilities as liabilities and they are often discriminated against. But there are a few who see strength in these ‘differently abled’ persons and enable them to lead a life of dignity and make their contribution to society. Gyanendra and Monica Purohit belong to this rare category of people. For the past 12 years they have instilled hope in hundreds of hearing and speech impaired persons through their unique approach of empowering them with skills and enabling them to access their rights, as well as changing the attitude of government personnel and society towards persons with disabilities.

Like any other young man, Gyanendra had a dream of becoming a chartered accountant and had cleared the foundation course. But something unexpected happened that changed his future. On 31 May 1997, his speech-impaired elder brother, Anand, went missing. Five days later, the Purohits were informed by the police about Anand’s death. He died after being hit by a speeding train in Nishatpura area of Bhopal.

“That day changed everything for me. I put aside my dream of becoming a CA. Instead, I decided to work to fulfil the dreams of my elder brother, whose body was buried as unclaimed by the police,” recalls Gyanendra.

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People are advised by many motivational speakers to have a vision for their life. But they, especially the young, are at a loss to create a proper vision for themselves which is suited to their taste and talents. The Universal Solidarity Movement (USM) of Value Education for Peace, Indore, has been involved in training young people to become visionary leaders with character and competence. This movement was founded by Varghese Alengaden, a youth animator, at Indore in 1993.

Vision and Mission of USM

The vision of USM is to build a civilization of love through self-transformation and social transformation. Although USM has been organizing various programmes for different stakeholders in education like students, parents, teachers and the school management, the main focus has been on training students to become visionary leaders.

USM conducts two specific activities in view of building visionary leaders: 1) Two-hour orientation sessions for high school students under the caption, ‘Personality Development for Global Leadership’, and 2) One week residential ‘Enlightened Leadership Training’ conducted at USM, Indore, for high school students.

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