Give Young People a #ChanceToThrive

“Dream a Dream has given me the new wings to fly. After joining life skills session my confident level has improved. I have overcome my fear and hesitation to talk to others.” – Nethravathi

 Nethravathi a 15 years old girl studying in the 9th standard in the Sacred Heart Public school. She has been part of Dream a Dream’s After School Life Skill through Arts programme for the past one year. She is the only daughter and lives with her Father and Mother and comes from middle class family.

Nethravathi was a talented girl but the facilitator observed that she was silent and shy. She hesitated to mingle with opposite gender as she felt uncomfortable. She also found it difficult to communicate with opposite gender and new people. The reason was she feared what other would think about her. She ignored boys and they teased her during activities and games session. She was comfortable to talk to girls and thus was close to them. Whenever the facilitator divided teams and when she is placed in a boys’ team she would never open up, she felt uncomfortable in participating in the group activities and would never speak in the group.

As the facilitator observed this behaviour of Nethravathi he conducted some activities on interaction and sharing stories with opposite gender. Initially Nethravathi was very uncomfortable about sharing her story and in next session the facilitator tried spending time to understand what her problem was and slowly allowing her to take initiative by asking her to lead the session and giving more opportunities during sessions. She was also appointed as team leader during activities. She led some check in & warm up session. By doing this her confident level increased day by day and eventually she had gained enough confidence that she started to take initiative to do some of the activities. She even overcame the fear of mingling with the opposite gender.

Nethravathi’s mother says that attending the life skill sessions in the Dream a Dream has changed her daughter a lot. She says, ‘Earlier my daughter never used to share anything about schools, now she does so on a daily basis and is comfortable sharing her feelings as well. She also interacts with our neighbours and relatives more often. She has started to lend a helping hand to me with house hold work. I am very happy that she has overcome her fear of talking.”

 Nethravathi’s class teacher says that she has improved a lot and that she could see her improving from quite student to bright and confident student. She also adds that Nethravathi’s confidence level in communication has also improved a lot.

Dream a Dream is a registered, charitable trust empowering children and young people from vulnerable backgrounds to overcome adversity and flourish in the 21st century using a creative life skills approach. Currently, we work with 10,000 young people a year through our two innovation labs – After School Life Skills Programme and Career Connect Programme, have trained over 9,828 teachers/educators from six states and including 19 districts in Karnataka impacting over 2,45,700 children and have impacted over 1 million children through strategic partnerships with state governments in Delhi and Jharkhand. We work on a strong collaborative approach with local charities, corporates, volunteers, governments, expert consultants, and a host of national and international strategic partners.

Dream a Dream has been recognized and awarded for innovation, transparency, and accountability over the years by Ashoka, Global Development Network, Harvard, Rockefeller Foundation, Resource Alliance, and others.

Four years ago, we unveiled our five-year strategic plan, which outlined our vision for 2016-21. Since 2016, we have continually invested in research & advocacy to build momentum around our vision of equipping young people from vulnerable backgrounds with life skills. The Research team has published one research paper and in the process of writing two more to be published in the coming financial year. Yes, the journey this far has been very exciting as we have achieved all our objectives by overcoming the many challenges reinforcing our belief that we are we are on the right path. With this report we would like to share some of our key highlights from FY 2019-20 as we move closer to our 2021 vision.

AFTER SCHOOL LIFE SKILLS PROGRAMME

In our After School Life Skills Programme, we use creative arts and football as mediums to engage and develop critical life skills among young people between the ages of 8 to 15 years. This programme is an innovation lab where new approaches to life skills development are introduced, demonstrated, documented, evaluated, and fed back into a larger framework for re-imagining learning for young people in the country. To measure the improvements in life skills amongst the young people, we use the Life Skills Assessment Scale (LSAS*).

*The LSAS is the first standardised impact measurement tool in the world to measure improvement in life skills among disadvantaged children.

KEY IMPACT INDICATORS OF ASLSP: 2020-21

• In the beginning of the year 24 partner school had agreed to engage in After School Life Skills Programme but due to the COVID19 pandemic we could hold our sessions in 20 partner schools. 

• 90% of young people shows positive improvement in at least one Life Skills. – We have collected 1557 baseline and 1557 endline LSAS data. We will analyse and share the improvement scores.

 • 85% attendance across the batches. – Despite the challenges faced by us and the young people regarding availability of smart phones or laptop or computer desktop etc., coupled with issues with internet – availability or bandwidth we managed to achieve 70% attendance by way of accommodating various timings suiting the young people or by aiding for internet packs etc.

 • 15 session through blended approach across the batches – We conducted on an average 16 session per batch.

 • 20 powerful stories collection that advocates the need for life skills education – We have collected 10 powerful stories of change.

 • Testimonials of young people, parents, and teachers.

HIGHLIGHTS OF AFTER SCHOOL LIFE SKILLS PROGRAMME:

•  Enrolled 3036 young people across 185 batches and 2798 young people completed the life skills intervention for the academic year. It was a very challenging year for both young people and us. We had to move all our programmes online. After much brainstorming we adopted the blended approach to engage young people in teaching life skills. The session was delivered in an interactive and effectively engaging manner throughout out the year. Young people also proactively participated in the life skills intervention whether we delivered it through online or off-line mode. We presented them opportunities to come up with their own creative stuff and continue their learning. 

• 199 Scholarships was provided to support young people to continue their schooling and learning. Due to the Pandemic parents of many young people lost their jobs leading to many young people working in nearby shops to supplement the family income. They had no means to pay the school fees to attend the online classes. We were approached by many young people seeking financial help in order to continue their education. We then decided with the agreement of many donors to give scholarships to these needy children. The scholarship has really helped these young people to come back to school and continue their leaning. 

•  Introduced ‘Learn at Home Sports Kit’ in our sessions; the resulting lockdown due to the pandemic young people were not able to go out on the field and play their sports and learn life skills. This was leading to many physical and emotional issues and challenges. To address this pressing issue, we came up with the sports kit which included a football, a skipping rope, a smiley ball, and a nutrition kit. This initiative allowed young people to play and learn at home. 20 partner schools benefitted from this. At the same time, it also contributed to increasing the attendance percentage in sports session. The Art kit helped young people to be stronger emotionally and sports kit focused on physical wellbeing of young people. This challenging year was special year for us as we could deliver both the programmes to 3036 young people.

•  Anjali a graduate from After School Life Skill programme has been selected as a HundrED youth ambassador. HundrED is a global education non-profit. Their mission is to help improve education through impactful innovations. Anjali will represent Dream a Dream at the conference and talk about the current educational needs and importance of life skill in school system.

• On the occasion of women’s day celebration 30 young people from our 3 partner schools participated in woman’s festival football tournament organized by Barca Academy in Whitefield Bangalore. Young people had a great day after a long gap due to the restrictions imposed by the government. They were able to interact with other team members physically. The partner schools won the second, third and fourth place!

•  Successfully Celebrated Graduation Day 2019-20 and 2020-21. After School Life Skill Programme hosted 59 events to celebrate the Graduation Day in a week at 21 Dream a Dream Partner schools, an event that brought together 1470 Young people, 30 Alumni, 1 Donor, 20 Teachers, 22 Dream a Dream staff and 7 other stake holders. The event designed for 2 hours helps young people to reflect and relook their learning journey at Dream a Dream life skills programme. At these events many young people shared their deep resilience stories, what they learned for their life and how deeply they connected with Dream a Dream. And, Yes, there was lots of fun, food, and interactive activities to celebrate the uncertainties. 

•  Dream a Dream Presented a Doodle Art Exhibition organized by one of our facilitator Chandrashekar along with two of our young people Ashraf and Ayesh who had taken their creativity to the next level and came up with amazing Doodle Art Frames. The “learn at home kit” helped them to take this creative risk and come with these beautiful and amazing frames.

KEY IMPACT INDICATORS OF ASLSP FOR APRIL 2020 – MARCH 2021.

• 5,084 young people are engaging through our After-school Life Skills Programme.

• 1,205 in Life Skills through Sports.
• 1,831 in life skills through Creative Arts Programme.
• 2,048 through reintegration sessions.

• We run our sessions in 20 partner’s schools comprising of with 18 Low-Cost Private Schools and 2 Government Schools across Bangalore city.

• The total number of batches in the programme is 185 of which:

• 72 batches are in Life Skills through Sports Programme

• 113 batches are in Life Skills through Arts Programme.
• Each batch engages 10-20 young people in the core Life Skills Programme.
• 4542 Session conducted and maintained 70% attendance across the batches.

• We have 33 trained Life Skills facilitators to deliver life skills interventions through blended approach.

Testimonials from Field:

“I whole heartedly convey my gratitude to Dream a Dream organization for their tremendous work, encouragement and support landed to the Parents, teachers and students during the Lockdown. The Pandemic situation has disrupted the living conditions of the people in the society, especially the stake holders of the school are financially and mentally affected during the COVID crisis. I am extremely happy that during this crisis the Dream a Dream team encouraged and supported us by providing the following facilities:

• Providing online classes and counseling the Students
• Distribution of ART KIT, NUTRITION KIT & SPORTS KIT
• Providing Ration kits to needy Parents & Teachers
• “#Whatif” statement related T-shirts
• Mask, Sanitizer for students & School teachers
• Provided Thermometer (Thermal Screening) for school
• Scholarship for 13 needy students
• Graduation Day Celebrations: Provided KIT”

- Dr. Keerthi, Principal, St. Mary’s Convent High School

Ameenuddin, a student in Florida English School - “I am studying in Florida English School. I am a reserved person. I was not sharing my feelings or emotions to anyone in the class because I had a fear that someone will tease me if I speak anything by mistake. I was feeling shy to talk with my opposite gender as well. I was the same even in my family circle too. In Dream a Dream classes I was getting opportunity to share my thoughts in a safe space. I tried to mingle only in that group. In camp I was given opportunity to host in the open mic I felt happy and I had got self-confidence to speak in front of others. I had an opportunity to co-host with the opposite gender which took me out of fear to mingle with opposite gender. Now I am mingling in my family circle also which is creating a bonding between me and them.”