Empower Vulnerable Young People with Life Skills

Dear Co dreamers,

We are very excited to inform you that we are counting days to take participate in FIFA festival 2014. 6 young people and 6 young leaders of our programme is participating in the esteemed programme will be held in Brazil. They are also got an opportunity to watch live quarter final world cup football match 2014.

With this report I would want to share with you the Alisha (name changed), from the words of our Life Skills Facilitator followed by a few highlights of Dream A Dream programme.

The Challenge: Alisha (name changed) is a 14 year old girl studying in the 8^th grade has been part of the Dream Life Skills through Arts Programme since August 2012.

The Life Skills facilitator observed that Alisha was not regular in the sessions and used to give reasons like, “I am not well, I have to leave my sister to school, Relatives have come home, etc.” Initially the facilitator thought that Alisha was not interested in the programme and attempted to talk to her but it didn’t work.

Subsequently the facilitator observed that during sessions, other participants were not friendly with Alisha. They were not willing to mingle with her and avoided sitting next to her. If anyone sat next to Alisha, that person was laughed and teased by the others. During a personal conversation with the facilitator, Alisha shared that since no one was friendly with her and the she was teased and scolded even at school, she did not want to attend the sessions. Alisha further shared that her classmates refused to help her in class work.  When she brought this to principal’s notice, she scolded her back. Her parents convinced her saying they will change her school next year.

The Change:  During one of the Life Skill sessions, the facilitator observed that no one wanted to pair with Alisha. After the session, the facilitator posed this question to the group and one of the participants mentioned that they felt that “Alisha is not clean and is not a decent girl.”

The facilitator realized the gravity of the discrimination and engaged Alisha in one-on-one conversations. The facilitators focus was to build her strength, resilience and ability to deal with this discrimination. Slowly building a personal bond with Alisha, providing her with lots of authentic validation, creating a safe space for Alisha to share her feelings and by listening to her, the facilitator managed to transform Alisha.

The facilitator shared her own story and encouraged Alisha to stay on in the programme. Alisha shared this with her mother and her mother encouraged her to attend these sessions. Through regular interactions with the facilitator, building her trust on the facilitator, Alisha became interested in attending the sessions and gradually the other participants noticed Alisha’s interest and talent.

The facilitator gradually noticed that Alisha started taking leadership, engaging with others and learning to deal with her feelings when others were teasing her. For instance, one day she could not complete her class work; her teacher did not allow her to attend the session. But Alisha was interested. She requested the facilitator to get her permission from the principal to attend session. She got it done.

One day Alisha shared with the facilitator, “Akka (sister), my friends celebrated my birthday using their own money and they are friendly with me!” Alisha is moving forward in her life positively and wants to continue in life skill sessions next year also.

The Dream Power: At Dream A Dream, the core of our intervention with young people centers around bringing care and empathy in our engagement with them. Through deep listening, building personal connections, acceptance, validation and creating safe learning spaces, we develop critical life skills in young girls like Alisha.

Organisational Highlights

• Dream A Dream, In association with Christ University organized the first ever conference on the “Life Skills Assessment Scale”. NGO heads, researchers, academicians and social work students made up the over 200 participants at the conference.
• Dream A Dream invited to be a presenter at the Annual Idea Conference organized by LEGO Foundation in Billund, Denmark between 8th - 10th April 2014.
• The Dream Rugby Team won second prize in the “Touch Me Not Rugby Tournament” organised by Karnataka Rugby Football Union. 5 boys and 1 girl from Dream A Dream participated in the match.
• Dream A Dream planned and moderated a session on “Education – Evolving Role of Teachers” at the Annual Development Dialogue 2014, Hubli organized by Deshpande Foundation.

Programmeme Highlights

• Engaged 5369 young people through our life skills programme. 2117 In Life Skills through Sports and 3252 through our Like Skills through Arts programme.
• A total of 2533 boys and 2836 girls are participating in the programme with a healthy ratio of 52.8% girls.
• 355 young people graduated from the programme.
• Conducted a total of 16 camps engaging 562 young people for year 2013-14.
• In the year 2013-14, Dream Connect engaged 3179 young people in various skill development and career development courses in the Dream Connect Programme.1472 Male and 1707 Female were engaged in the programme. Retention across courses is 97.2%.
• 416 young adults engaged in Last Mile Support Programme in Q4 and engaged 755 young people in year 2013-14.
• Provided placement service to 14 graduates from the Dream Connect programme in Q4. Total job placement provided for 26 Dream Connect graduates in 2013-14. These are entry level jobs in Retail and F&B industries or as data entry operators for start-ups in Bangalore.
• As part of the ‘Kalarava” initiative, 200 graduates were engaged in new learning exposures. This includes 76 young people in Q4.
• Engaged over 533 teachers / youth workers / facilitators in our 4-workshop Teacher Development Programme for the year 2013-14.
• A team of 20 Lead facilitators deliver the training. Received 83.3% overall average rating of excellent/very good on the training from the participants.

“This Training helped me to change my way of communication and interaction, I learnt the importance of the two in my day to day life and most importantly as a Teacher.” – Teacher, Youth For Seva after attending Life Skills Facilitator’s training level3

• Through Dream Mentoring Programme established 100 mentor mentee relationships in 2013-14through 4 cycles of training and engagement.
• Engaged 2214 volunteers and clocked 25,341 hours in 2013-14.
• Conducted 56 fundays involving 17 corporates and 4 educational institutions engaging 1713 volunteers clocking 6654 hours in 2013-14.

Please scroll down to see a few pictures from the programme. We look forward for your continued support and an enduring relationship.

With Gratitude,