We started our journey back in 2006, when Pravah and the Youth & Civil Society Initiative of Sir Ratan Tata Trust (YACS-SRTT) worked together to develop strategies for strengthening youth development in India.

Simply looking at the number of young people we were talking about, it was clear that no one organization could begin to think of impacting all of the gaps that existed. To make any significant difference to this scenario we felt that many different people and organizations with diverse experiences needed to work together to put in place strategies for change. The idea of Commutiny – The Youth Collective was thus born.

Subsequently, we invited senior members from 7 other organizations across India that worked intensively with youth and/or youth development issues to join in the dialog. It was with them on board that we, Commutiny – The Youth Collective, formally began our journey in 2007.

In early 2008, we launched the Commutiny Leadership & Learning Journey (LLJ). Starting from reading hundreds of application forms to using their experiences to facilitate young people to mature as change-leaders, to setting up the CYC office and putting a team together … the founders did it all – by volunteering their time.

By the middle of 2008 we had set up our workspace and had a team in place. CYC registered as a Trust with 14 founder members on board in December 2008.

The Creative Resource Cell also started its activities in 2008 hosting the Kabir Ki Khoj course. Early 2009, the Creative Resource Cell and Policy Research & Action Cell were merged in to the Creative Media & Policy Group (CMPG). During the year CMPG anchored various grassroots media courses for youth and also launched the Commutiny Media Network partnering with 13 organisations & individuals.

Founding Members
Thirteen collective members founded CYC with institutional support from Pravah and Sir Ratan Tata Trust.

• Amrita Patwardhan
• Dr. Anita Patil Deshmukh
• Arjun Shekhar
• Ashraf Patel
• Durba Ghose
• Gagan Sethi
• Meenu Venkateswaran
• Nayan Patel
• Dr. Ramnarayan Syag
• Rustam Vania
• Ravi Gulati
• Sonam Wangchuk
• Vartika Jaini