Give Young People a #ChanceToThrive

"Dream a Dream Football sessions have helped me a lot as I have learnt important life skills such as managing conflicts, collaboration and leadership skills. All these are crucial skills required for team sports like football. I will use them in my life and to realize my dream of playing for India when I grow up." Purushotham shares with a confident smile.

Purushotham a 15-year-old boy studying in 9th standard in Annaswammy school comes from a lower income group, his father works as a building contractor and mother is a fruit vendor, where life is a constant conflict between choices and aspirations given the fast changing world.He has a brother who studies in the same school.

Purushotham realized his passion for football when he enrolled for the life skills sessions in the After School Life Skills Sports programme in 4th grade. 

He was the most active kid when it came to football. He interacted and had healthy relationships with all his peers during sessions. He listened carefully to the facilitator always and would be the first to raise his hand in the reflection circle and share his learning and areas of improvement for the next session. Being a part of the group for 5 years, he was very confident to initiate any activity in front of the larger group.

However, during an activity named “Listen and not to listen” the facilitator was surprised when Purushotham started acting strange. In the activity, each student was paired up with a person from the peer group. Purushotham was paired up with Karthik. Both the participants never talked amongst themselves, sitting throughout the session facing opposite directions. Purushotham didn’t pay attention to the session and even during the reflection session, he was sitting in a corner quietly while others shared their experience with enthusiasm. Upon enquiring about this behavior, he said that he will never pair up with Karthik again. When asked for a reason, he shared that a few months ago, there was some misunderstanding between them and Karthik had beaten him up in front of others. This was a humiliating incident and he decided to ignore Karthik thereafter. This was a challenging situation but the facilitator realized the gravity of the situation and the need to channelize Purushotham’s anger in a constructive way.

The facilitator gave 2 options to Purushotham. The first option was a simple one – to stop coming to the sessions and the second one - a rather difficult one at that time – to work towards building a healthy relationship with Karthik, which would otherwise negatively affect a team game such as football. This was done on purpose as the facilitator wanted to understand his ability to manage conflicts at a comparatively smaller level. Purushotham however made the right choice, given his passion for football and agreed to play and talk with Karthik on field.

The facilitator then announced a football tournament the next day. When the students were asked about their playing and position preferences, Purushotham volunteered to organize the complete tournament. He made 2 teams for the tournament and made Karthik the referee. This action demonstrated a positive behavioral change on Purushotham’s part, his leadership abilities and how he prevailed over his conflicts and could work towards the realization of a larger goal putting his differences behind him. He is working hard to achieve his dream and he thanks Dream a Dream sessions which helped him with required skills for the same.

Purushotham’s feedback: -

"My dream is to play for the Indian football team. I am working very hard to achieve my goal. Dream a Dream Football sessions have helped me a lot as I have learnt important life skills such as managing conflicts, collaboration and leadership skills. All these are crucial skills required for team sports like football. I will use them in my life and to realize my dream of playing for India when I grow up." Purushotham shares with a confident smile.

Teacher’s quotes: -

His teacher recalls, "Purushotham never seemed to be interested and would never listen in the class. However, he has changed a lot since joining the Football life skills session. Not only has he developed leadership abilities which are evident when he manages his team, he has also started helping his classmates with school work and other responsibilities, something we had never imagined would happen."

Facilitator feedback: -

“Purshottam used to lose his temper easily and get angry with anyone for no particular reason. It used to become difficult to interact with him or control his anger during this time. However, post the programme, his patience levels have improved a lot. Also, he respects everyone alike."

We are very happy to share the learning outcomes our programmes  -

Delivering Impact -

• 92.6% participants in ASLSP, 99.7% in CCP and 100% in TDP showed a positive change in their average scores 

• 81.4% participants in ASLSP, 95.3% in CCP and 97.9% in TDP improved in atleast 4 life skills and above 

• 96.9% of participants in ASLSP, 91.4% in CCP and 100% in TDP are above norms(>=2.5 points) by the end of the programme

• 83.5% of participants in ASLSP, 96.6% in CCP and 97.9% in TDP improved their skills by atleast one standard deviation(>=.75) 

• 96.6% of graduates in ASLSP, 92.1% in CCP were meaningfully engaged that is made meaningfully choices in life 

• There was a positive feedback from 90% of the teacher’s attending the Life Skills Facilitation workshops (LSF)

Building Evidence -

• The analysis showed a strong correlation between baseline score and improvement in ASLSP and CCP while a weaker correlation in the TDP. All programme analyses showed, participants with low baseline score in the beginning of the programme had an improvement in life skills by the end of the programme.
• The study on attendance (ASLSP) showed a positive correlation between life skills and attendance of participants. The analysis showed that participants in ASLSP had high attendance and an improvement in life skills.
• The longitudinal study revealed that participants continuously engaged in ASLSP begin with a higher baseline score and also end with a higher end line score when compared to young people newly enrolled in the programme
• The Last Mile Support Programme (LMSP) has been effective in keeping the dropout rate of participants to less than 7.9% in the last four years 

Methodology - 

To understand how our programmes are performing overall and how they are performing on a deeper level within programmes, we use the Dream Life Skills Assessment Scale (DLSAS) which is the first standardized impact measurement tool in the world to measure improvement in the life skills among disadvantaged children. In this report we are using a quantitative method of analysis for assessing our programmes. The outcome of the programmes are also measured qualitatively through stories and testimonials. An analysis of both quantitative and qualitative data are presented in this Impact Report.

You can read in more detail the impact of our programmes in here - http://dreamadream.org/reports/impactreports/ImpactReport17-18.pdf