FORMING LEADERS FOR TOMORROW WHO JOIN HANDS WITH GOD AND PEOPLE TO HEAL OUR BROKEN WORLD.
TO SERVE NOT TO BE SERVED…….
Youth are the strength and the visible promise of a nation and its future. They need a philosophy of life- a reason to live for, a cause to rally around, a vision to spur them on. LTS both challenges and motivates the youth to rise above all odds. It ignites their generosity that sets them off on the path of selfless service. Nurturing their inborn talents and inculcating humanitarian values, LTS brings out the best in them. In the process, the vision of LTS becomes a way of life-for life.
DYNAMICS OF LTS: The movement LTS is the abbreviation of three words- LEADERSHIP, TRAINING and SERVICE
LEADERSHIP: The aim of Leadership Training Service is to identify, affirm and develop leadership qualities in the members. It endeavours to form responsible leaders with a spirit of service, who becomes agents of social change.
TRAINING: Some are born leaders. Not all. Those who are not born leaders need to be trained. LTS provides this training through various programmes and activities such as- orientation Days, weekly meetings, Camps, Social Service Schemes, Study Days, Training Days, Workdays (work for common cause) projects and Art of Prayer.
SERVICE: Leadership calls for loving dedicated and effective service to others. An LTSer is trained from the very beginning to render service to others. To serve, not to be served, is the ideal of the movement.
HISTORICAL SKETCH
Leadership Training service is a youth movement –mainly for students in school and college. It has a vibrant history of four and a half decades, during which it has become part of life for many young people in Bangladesh, Nepal and India. It was begun by youth and even today it is the young people themselves who are the life of the movement.
LTS Legacy
The vision of an organisation to help students to develop their personality, promote their leadership qualities, and inculcate in themselves social awareness and social responsibility was originally conceived by a group of students at Goethals’ Memorial School, run by the Christian Brothers, in Kurseong, Darjeeling, West Bengal, India. These students were from different cultural backgrounds. The group had five members – Kamal Singh Arora, Kee Tong Wong, Pranahendra N Mukherjee, G.S. Liu and N. Clement Lee.
These five enthusiastic young students approached Fr. Emmanuel M. Briffa, Sj, who was at that time a young Jesuit in training in the neighbouring St. Mary’s College . Under the able guidance of Fr. Briffa and with the support and blessings of Br. Thomas. P. Fitzpatrick, CFC, the Principal their dream became a reality. A new organisation was born with the name “Goethals’ Leadership Squad” (GLS) on 2nd July 1959. the motto of GLS was “For God and My Country”. Fr. Briffa helped them to write a constitution for GLS. As the Movement began to spread in the neighbouring schools it was renamed ‘God’s Leadership Squad’. A number of young Jesuits in training guided the GLS Units at Goethals’ and other schools in the neighbourhood in its infancy.
In 1961, some of the members from the pioneer group joined St. Xavier College, Kolkata. They formed a GLS Unit there, under the guidance of Fr. Raymond Pilette, SJ. He was instrumental in building up the GLS Unit in Kolkata.
Within a short span of time, with the initiative of a number of dedicated GLS members, many GLS Units sprang up in different parts of India. It was also a time of evolution of the Movement. Some GLS members were dissatisfied by the military flavour of the label ‘Squad’ and some collegians found that the word ‘God’ gave an overly pietistic impression. The Movement was thus renamed “Leaders’ Training Service”(LTS) in January 1965 and later ‘LEADERSHIP TRAINING SERVICE’.Fr. Robert Slattery, SJ, revised the Constitution in 1966, after a detailed consultation with the LTS Unit.