[back]

LEADERSHIP TRAINING SERVICE (LTS)

Leadership Training Service is a youth Movement, mainly for students in schools and colleges. It was initiated by 5 students of Goethals Memorial School Kurseong, Darjeeling, in 1959 as Goethals Leaders Squad (GLS). The infant Movement reached Kolkata in 1961, when three of the pioneer members joined St Xavier’s College and initiated the Movement for the young adults in the colleges and Universities. In 1965 the GLS was renamed as Leadership Training Service.

The LTS joins hands with educational Institutions and trains the students to develop their personality and leadership skills so that they become responsible leaders and committed citizens. The LTS is providing training to student leaders in three South Asian countries – India, Nepal and Bangladesh. Over 15000 students are being trained in the LTS way of life, with over 3000 students being from Kolkata and its suburbs.

The LTS has a vision of “Forming leaders for tomorrow who will join hands with God and people of good will to heal the broken world”. The motto of the Movement is “FOR GOD AND COUNTRY”.

The Vision of the LTS is achieved through the graded four-fold objectives:

• Personality Development;
• Leadership Skills;
• Social Awareness; and,
• Social Responsibility that leads to Social Development.

Thus, the LTS is a journey from ‘I Consciousness’ (initiated through Personality development and mastering leadership skills) to ‘We Consciousness’ (achieved through inculcating social awareness and exercising social responsibility that leads to social development).

It is a matter of great pride and honour for us Xaverian-LTSers to be a part of a family with such a rich and vibrant history. Rev. Fr. Felix Raj, S.J., our Principal, has graciously allotted an office for the LTS and has promised his support to further the cause of the Movement. We the LTSers at SXC are privileged in a very special way as we are directly animated by Rev. Fr. John Rogers, S.J., the LTS Promoter for South Asia.

Therefore, after a long period of lull, the LTS unit of St. Xavier’s College Calcutta, under the dynamism of Fr. John, is once again infused with energy and vigour to become one of the prominent societies of the college. The training that is being imparted to the LTSers corresponds with the mission of LTS, to develop leadership skills among the youth, and is by an extension, our small effort to realize Dr. Kalam’s “India 2020” dream, a vision that we LTSers are fully committed to.