We need your support to make a strong, more competent generation of future leaders.

How this started

I am a mother to a typically curious, mildly rebellious, full-of-promise 14 year old. My son and I spend enormous amounts of time talking, walking, plotting and scheming a way around the digital net of chaos around us. Screens have dictated a major part of our growing up together and we have actively fought its corrupting influence by talking about and debating on matters that are lasting and character-building.

Something switched up early this year. My son was coming back with questions that seemed deeply contemplative and compassionate for his fellow generation. As a parent, but importantly as a socio-cultural behaviourist, I had to get to understanding what was happening.

So. I spent this year asking parents like you what worries you about the next ten years for your child. The answers came back consistent.

We are struggling with a generation that is struggling with Attention. Screens have a vice grip on us all and it shows no sign of letting up. Funnily, social skills today only work through a phone: everyone is busy, commuting is inconvenient, there are way more pressures on our time as a family now than there ever was. And the next generations are being formed inside the cocoon of a feed that is built to reward the opposite of everything you want them to become. Terms like bedrotting and doom-scrolling are now universally relevant to all of us.

The level of disconnection we are feeling between generations has the worst effect on the children. They do not feel they can trust us, or lean on us, or that we actually care for who they are and the chaos they have inherited as a generation. They do however, feel they can fall on each other. That there is understanding and acceptance. This young generation is not only hyper exposed to addictive technology, access to addictive substances is almost too easy.

As a parent, we are not wrong to worry. And we are not wrong to feel that nothing on the market answers the worry. The apps promising to fix screens just deliver more screens. The subscription boxes we get our kids with the hope that they will change time consumption are, to our children, just more homework in a box. Let's not even get into the world of online tutors and after school programs. Everyone wants to make money off our fears and worries for our children, but no one can. The algorithm of business does not allow for a counter-thesis to bloom.

After months and months of deliberation that took more than a year, I believe my son has cracked the answer. It's a small but concrete way to solve the generational dilemma. And to give parents the ability to trust the younger generation's intent and intelligence.

Presenting LIFAAFA UG

A screen-free, offline-first youth culture.

Go back to when we were their age. We had penpals and comic books, activity puzzles, and time for collecting bottlecaps and stamps and coins. That nostalgia is our childhood in a bottle.

The young generation needs something better than K-pop and unisex clothing and moppy hair to remember themselves by.

They need to feel part of a tribe. The distance should feel welcome. And heart warming. They need to feel alive to go for a real-life meet up again, not some hobby class parents shove them into for better time management.

LIFAAFA UG is where members receive mail kits, write letters, learn new skills, solve puzzles, learn survival tricks, collect localised knowledge, trade stamps, keep field books, form clubs, and observe the world.

Everything runs through the post. Real paper. Real ink. Real people.

LIFAAFA UG is a secret club, not a social network. We are bringing old school back and making it new school: field notebook, handwriting, honor codes, habits re-wiring.

Their rules, their friendships. We as parents keep a learned distance and let them thrive. And be children again.

Who is behind it

Damian. A fourteen year old boy living in Bangalore.

A single kid with a gentle soul and creative calling, he was able to watch his own generation long enough to notice what is missing. So he decided to build the thing he wishes existed for his friends and the ones coming after him. LIFAAFA UG is his answer.

We are the adults helping him make it real. Everything you see, from the letters to the field books to the stamps, sits on top of a simple idea he insisted on. Give the generation a space that is theirs. Offline. Handmade. Real.

Who are the adults? Firstly there is me, Theresa Ronnie. I am the facilitator and financier of this project. Soruba Gopalakrishnan is the art director supporting Damian. We are flanked by a dozen artists from India who will be part of the creative inspiration cohort who help jump-start the creative spark in the younger generation.

We have chosen our team deliberately. Art and writing, along with problem-solving and critical thinking, will be a core aspect of what we deliver. But they are not designed by Harvard-educated, serial entrepreneurs. In fact, we steer very very clear of those types. We are bringing old school values that are timeless to human existence back into the room: patience, commitment, connection, and growing through learning.