By Vishal Talreja | Cofounder
“Life skills have taught me how to lead sessions, manage team members, and make decisions on my own. I have also learned to respect others while working in groups. I am very happy that Dream a Dream has given me this opportunity.” – Seema*
Seema is a 16-year old girl studying in Mount Everest School in the 9th standard. Her father is a mechanic and her mother is a housewife. She has an elder brother studying in college. Seema is a participant at Dream a Dream’s After School Life Skills Programme, pursuing football.
Seema is regular to school and gets along with her classmates, but was quick to lose her temper. In this fit of anger, she resorted to hitting her classmates and using foul language. She was rude and disrespectful to her teachers and did not pay attention to them or follow their instructions.
One of our facilitators noticed Seema’s short temper and decided to have a candid conversation with her to understand her behaviour. T o make her feel like she was in a safe space, the facilitator narrated a personal story about how his anger affected his life. Moved by his story, Seema began to reflect on her own behaviour and shared her story with the facilitator. She told him that her father was an alcoholic who often abused her mother. Being exposed to abusive behaviour left her feeling lost and confused, making it difficult for her to concentrate on her studies or be at peace with herself. She bottled up her feelings, which led to her being rebellious and aggressive.
Keeping in mind what Seema is going through, the facilitator thought of a more suitable way for Seema to express herself. Through a role play activity called ‘Wrong Behaviour’, the facilitator made Seema play the role of a drunken driver. After this activity, she reflected on how making others in the family unhappy was wrong. She soon began to piece together how her own behaviour was causing unhappiness amongst her classmates. The role play activity and discussion that followed helped her relate to her own situation at home.
Over the next few sessions, her reflections deepened, thus helping her solve problems, come up with new ideas to control her anger and be happy. She became actively involved in football warmup sessions with her classmates and friends. Seema gradually opened up and seized opportunities.
Seema’s participation in the life skills sessions gave her the courage to talk to her father and address the adverse effects of alcoholism on the family.
Seema was selected for a workshop organized by BFC (Bangalore Football Club) and got an opportunity to play with the captain of the Indian football team, Sunil Chhetri.
*Name Changed
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; we have trained over 6,728 teachers/educators from 191 partners impacting over 1,68,200 children and young people and sensitize over 2,500 volunteers through our unique Life Skills Development model. We work on a strong collaborative approach with local charities, corporates, volunteers, governments, expert consultants and a host of national and international strategic partners.
Presently, we deliver life skills interventions through three programmes: After School Life Skills Programme, Career Connect Programme and the Teacher Development Programme.
Dream a Dream has been recognized and awarded for innovation, transparency and accountability over the years by Ashoka, GDN, Harvard, Rockefeller Foundation, Resource Alliance and others.
Two 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 journey so far has been very exciting, and we believe we are on the right path. With this report we would like to share some key highlights from the first half of 2018-19 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 Dream Life Skills Assessment Scale (DLSAS*).
The programme’s goals for the next three years (2018-21) are as follows:
Key Impact Indicators –
5,658 young people engaged in the After School Life Skills Programme
IMPACT ANALYSIS 2017-18
For a detailed report on our programme and impact, kindly visit our website www.dreamadream.org
You can find us on Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin.
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
