ARCA Record of Change
by Youth Ki Awaaz
ARC — A Record of Change
From lived experience to societal shifts — campaigns, partnerships and programmes that moved the needle. Organised by the kind of change they created.
Ongoing & upcoming
Work in progress — where the outcomes are still being written.
50 adolescent fellows across all 85 wards of Indore co-designing local climate solutions on water, waste, and mobility, with findings feeding directly into city governance.
Read case study →So far
Coming up
→ 3rd policy consultation with NIUA, EPCO & Indore Municipal Corporation
→ Final Indore Youth ACT Framework integrating adolescent voices into governance
→ National conference to scale the model to other Indian cities
A national programme on ethical and sustainable consumption with UNDP India — 10,000-person survey, campus champions, multichannel content, and townhalls in Delhi and Assam.
Visit programme page →In progress
Coming up
→ Behavioural insights report on how young Indians navigate sustainable consumption
→ Campus champions programme training student leaders across colleges
→ Roundtable bringing together youth, private sector, and policymakers
A six-month behaviour change campaign on antibiotic misuse — meeting young people where these decisions actually happen: WhatsApp, peer groups, and neighbourhood chemists.
Targets
What it's trying to change
→ Ask first — antibiotics only with qualified medical advice
→ Finish fully — stopping early breeds resistance
→ No leftovers — don't keep or share unused antibiotics
Narrative shift
Campaigns that changed how an issue was talked about — making the previously unspeakable, speakable.
The first large-scale public campaign in India to shift the menstrual health conversation from taboo and shame to product choice, affordability, and policy.
Case study →In numbers
What changed
→ Informed India's draft menstrual hygiene policy
→ 10+ Action Network fellows built their own organisations
→ Visible narrative shift in corporate policy post-2020
A campaign to make accessibility a national agenda — using first-person storytelling and a viral video to shift public understanding of disability from charity to rights.
Case study →In numbers
What changed
→ Sparked a national conversation on accessibility as a right
→ 50% completion rate — every second person reached watched the full video
→ Nominated for Social Media for Empowerment Awards 2018
A campaign to decode existing child rights laws and rally young people towards understanding how to actually help street children.
Case study →In numbers
What changed
→ One of YKA's longest-running digital movements on child rights
→ Findings informed a 200+ person Changemaker Series at IIT Bombay
→ Nominated for Social Media for Empowerment Awards 2018
More campaigns that shifted the conversation
Smaller in scale, but each opened a door that hadn't been opened before.
Menstrual health 2017
#IAmNotDown
With Whisper India
Built a movement demanding removal of GST on sanitary products. Campaign video crossed 360,000 views in one week. Led to a direct sit-down with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.
Women's safety online 2018
#PositionOfStrength
With Twitter India
Launched the first Hindi hashtag for women's empowerment online. 170+ attendees including Barkha Dutt and Meenakshi Lekhi.
Water & sanitation 2018
#InDeepShit
With WaterAid India
6.5M+ reach and 278K+ video views on India's water and sanitation crisis — making the Swachh Bharat conversation more intersectional than it had been in mainstream media.
Policy influence
Campaigns where youth voices didn't just reach people — they reached institutions.
India's first digital campaign advocating for a net-zero transition — mainstreaming the just transition conversation through research, storytelling, and sustained policy dialogue.
Case study →In numbers
What changed
→ India committed to net-zero by 2070 at COP26
→ Led directly to the Youth ACT Framework with NIUA
→ Won Afaqs! Digipub Award 2023 for Climate Reporting
→ YKA-trained writers now reporting for National Geographic
India's first framework for city governments to make climate decision-making youth-centered — co-created with NIUA under MoHUA, developed with Kochi and Visakhapatnam.
Case study →In numbers
What changed
→ First national framework enabling urban local governments to engage youth in climate governance
→ Publicly available resource for city planners
→ civil society
→ and youth groups across India
→ Now being piloted live in Indore through ACT Indore
A pan-India public survey mapping young road users' awareness of traffic laws, personal safety, and the Good Samaritan Law.
Case study →In numbers
What changed
→ Produced an 8-point policy agenda for road safety stakeholders
→ Only 33% knew about the Good Samaritan Law — findings drove targeted advocacy
→ Demonstrated youth-led research as credible input for transport policy
A multi-year series of locally-rooted conversations between young people and policy makers — running across 10 state elections.
Case study →In numbers
What changed
→ Brought young people and elected representatives into direct dialogue across 10 states
→ Launched #GoVote as a first-time voter education campaign in 4 regional languages
→ YKA's longest-running civic engagement series
Research that reached decision makers
Surveys and data that gave youth perspectives a seat in rooms they hadn't been in before.
Nutrition 2019
#PoshanGyaan
With IPE Global
430K+ people reached. Quiz surpassed its target by 80%. Hashtag trended #2 in Delhi during a tweet storm demanding policy action from the Ministry of Women & Child Development.
Health & nutrition 2021
#YouAreWhatYouEat
With Nutrition International
2,900+ respondents across 5 states. Found 64% of young people were never educated about diet during adolescence — directly relevant to national nutrition programmes.
Girls' education 2020–22
Championing girls' right to education
A long-term youth-led movement demanding extension of the Right to Education Act — training Action Network fellows to advocate for MHM facilities in schools across their regions.