The Chief Minister’s Youth Centre (CMYC) at Dadenggre was inaugurated yesterday in the presence of the community and school going students of Dadenggre.
The opening ceremony also featured two special events for the youths of the community – an art competition and a singing competition.
CMYCs are an alternate co-learning space with a library and a ‘nook’ open to learners of all ages to explore and co-learn as per their interests. Be it baking, carpentry, coding, electronics, sports, arts, music etc, the centre caters to the aspirations of all learners. The Dadenggre CMYC is the sixth centre set up in West Garo Hills.
Cabinet minister and chief guest James PK Sangma touched upon the significance of the younger demographic in Meghalaya, where as much as 73 percent of the population are youths.
Stressing on the need to enhance the functions of these learning spaces, he added, “The CM’s Youth Centres are designed to give the youth of Meghalaya a free, secure and accessible environment where they can develop their ideas and skills. The youth are an important asset and we want to empower them with an opportunity for alternate learning that will enable them to thrive in today’s competitive world.”
The singing competition was unanimously judged to be the crux of the event. Themed “Songs of the 21st century”, the competition saw many competitors, all students from five schools in the Dadenggre region, specially chaperoned by their teachers and school faculty members. Little Flower Higher Secondary School bagged the first prize.
The art competition was on the theme “natural colours” where participants were required to only use naturally available colours and dyes in their paintings and was also lauded by those present.
Entries that were submitted to the event at the CMYC were remarkable, with interesting homemade colour dyes ranging from charcoal, turmeric, sohiong, sunflower petals to lime and other exotic extracts. However, Sanreyo M Marak won first prize for his brilliant use of shadows and highlights using only simple charcoal in his brilliant portrayal of legendary Albert Einstein.
