Sport India Project #5718

Give Children Wings to their Dreams

by Dream A Dream

Project Report | Apr 23, 2013
Glimpses of the Year Gone By!

By Shilpa P.A. | Anchor - Fundraising and Communications

All set to strike a goal

"The work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives and the dreams shall never die." ~ Edward Kennedy

As we continue to create a vibrant, positive and healthy future for our young people, by nurturing and nourishing them to “not give up hope,” and believe in their dreams, your support has been critical to make it happen. Thank you for your continued support to help us in our endeavour to empower and transform the lives of young people from vulnerable backgrounds.

We have had an absolutely fantastic year and we write to you today to engage you in the celebration of everything that we have achieved over the last year.

What better way to celebrate than to celebrate the achievements of the young people who give purpose to our lives. One such celebration is of Janardhan (name changed) An 11 year old who has been an active participant in our Life Skills through Arts programme for 2 years now.

The Challenge: He comes from a broken, abusive and violent background which has made him very aggressive and short-tempered. He was very naughty; hitting, biting, irritating others, tearing paper, and walking away from the class. No one would sit with him. He would tear his drawing sheets because he felt he was not good enough. He would use foul language, wear dirty clothes to school, and would not wear his shoes; instead he held them in his hand. One day, the facilitator asked Janardhan about his problems and he explained to her all his pain. He shared how his mother is very abusive, beats him, and will not let him wear his shoes because they will get dirty. The facilitator requested his classmates to assist him and many of them started to do so.

The Change: When it was observed by the facilitator that he was not participating, she asked what had happened and he replied, “Mam, I don’t know how to draw.” Janardhan was then asked to draw whatever he feels like. He then asked his facilitator if he can copy a drawing from a book and she approved. Then after a few minutes, he finally drew something and the facilitator praised him for participating and showed the entire group.

After receiving praise from the facilitator and some of his classmates that day, he stopped tearing and crushing his drawing sheets.

The Dream Power: More recently, when the facilitator has asked the classmates about Janardhan, they gave very positive feedback. “Mam, he has become silent. Sometimes he is aggressive but because other children tell him to do bad things, tell lies about him and complain to the teacher. The teacher still punishes him. He still gets angry with other boys but it is no longer his fault. He has become a good boy now.” Some of his classmates even share their lunch with him.

Over the years, we have seen Janardhan transform into a less aggressive and more supportive participant.

The facilitator stood rock-solid through this violent behaviour in sessions; all the time noticing and validating his positive behaviour. He has now learnt to draw without worrying about being laughed at, to attend sessions regularly, even negotiating with his mother amongst other demands, has started showing healthy habits of being clean for the sessions and throwing litter in a garbage bin and as per his peers, he is less of a bully now.

All small but extremely significant changes that will help Janardhan learn to trust himself and people around him and hopefully make healthy choices in life. For us at Dream A Dream, these subtle changes mean a life time of healthy choices.

Organizational Highlights

Over 31,000 young people directly and indirectly impacted in the year.
Started the year with inviting two remarkable people onto the Board of Trustees of Dream A Dream – Sandeep Farias and Meera Harish. You can read more about them at http://dreamadream.org/about-us/governing-board/. In addition, Vishal Talreja, our current Executive Director also joined the Board while continuing in his current role.
Raised and got commitments for Rs. 2.7 Crore (USD 540,000) from our hugely committed network of donors which include individuals, corporates and foundations.
Participated in the Sony European Graduate Programme Enterprise Project through StreetFootballworld. As part of this project 5 of SONY’s Graduate Students supported Dream A Dream with establishing a strategic partnership with a sports based club, association or company to further Dream A Dream’s scale plans.
Ms. Suchetha Bhat, COO was featured in the local newspaper, Bangalore Mirror, where she talks about our Dream Mentoring Programme. Please follow the link below to read the article http://www.bangaloremirror.com/article/81/20120922201209222022029779692d076/Wanted-not-teachers-but-awakeners.html
Other media coverage of Dream A Dream through the year at http://dreamadream.org/category/news/
Awarded as 3^rd highest fundraising NGO at the TCS World 10K Bangalore held in May 2012
Received Silver Trophy at the Global Sports Forum, Barcelona for our work in the arena of Sports 4 Development
A committed team of 50 staff members helped us achieve our targets.

Programme Highlights

3050 young people actively engaged in our core life skills programmes – 1663 in Life skills through Sports and 1387 in Life skills through Creative Arts.
For every 2 boys there is 1 girl participating in the Programmes - with more boys participating in the Life Skills through Sports programme and more girls in the Life Skills through Arts programme.
Over 117 batches are run across 18 locations in Bangalore, engaging 25-30 young people per batch in the core Life Skills programmes
24 Life Skills facilitators trained to deliver the curriculum based sessions; 86% of the sessions conducted are consistent across facilitators and over 90% met quality expectations in the delivery of programmes.
A healthy average attendance of 81.3% across programmes
Implementing new session delivery model –
- 9 month intervention
- 30-35 sessions per batch
- 2 hours per session once a week
- 20 curriculum based and 10-15 unstructured sessions
10 Outdoor Experiential Camps completed engaging over 367 young people.
948 young people actively engaged. 488 girls and 460 boys engaged with 83% average attendance in skills for Career Development such as Computer education, Spoken English, Outdoor Experiential Camps, Mentoring, Career guidance courses.
65 young people have access to a volunteer mentor. 103 volunteer mentors have been trained in the year.
1271 volunteers have been engaged clocking over 19,767 volunteers hours. Dream A Dream is amongst 10 organizations short-listed from across India for its Volunteer Engagement Programme by IVolunteer India.
Over 27000 young people indirectly impacted through 276 Teachers/youth workers/facilitators through 2-day Life Skill Facilitation workshops.
Geographic spread of Partnerships and Trainings - Built partnerships with two organizations running programmes outside Bangalore – Mumbai and Rural Karnataka. Additionally, have successfully developed partnerships with schools in Bangalore, where other Dream A Dream Life Skills programmes are delivered.
Strategic Support received from Marshall Foundation, Oberoi Family Foundation and through a fundraising evening hosted by Ian and Victoria Watson in London jointly with Partners for Youth Empowerment (PYE).

Once again, Thank You for your continuous support and we look forward to building a long lasting relationship with you to realize many more "Dreams"

Our future Stars!!

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Jan 19, 2013
New Year! New Hopes!!

By Shilpa P.A. | Anchor-Fundraising and Communications

Volunteers at 1st day of Mentoring training

As we usher the New Year with lots of excitement and Dreams, we appreciate your sincere support that has helped us in motivating many young people over the years. This milestone was only possible with your belief in our work.

We offer our thanks and wish you peace and joy throughout the New Year.

To start the year with happiness and hope, we would like to share this story from this year’s program.

Meet Gowri (name changed) from our Life Skills Through Creative Arts Programme: Story as narrated by our facilitator. 7^th standard, Stella Mary’s School, one of our partner schools.

Gowri has been in our Life Skills Through Football Programme since last year and this academic year she opted to be part of our Life Skills through Creative Arts.

Gowri’s father is a policeman, she is very proud of him and her mother is a housewife. When Gowri started attending our life skill programme this year she was negligent in the sessions during the first month, she would only get along with close group of 3 to 4 friends and would not participate fully in the session or interact with facilitator.

Changes after being in our Programme:

After a few weeks, she started to enjoy the sessions. She started to ask questions and take leadership. This change in her was evident in one reflection circle, a time where young children discuss and share about how they felt being part of the activity in the day’s session and reflect on their thoughts, very few students were participating; then she said – “lets all talk, lets share our feelings so that we can also learn from your experiences as well, so come up and speak”. She also started to help others who needed help with understanding.

In her words: “Dream life skill showed me a new life; I learned that we should not be selfish and partial to others. I understood what is my real life, dream life skills have made me realize what is my real life. I learned good habits, good discipline and good manners, how to respect the others. Now, I really understand my goals and aims, etc. I understand my friends habits, hobbies, character, likes, dislikes ,etc. the sessions taught me how to face challenges. I had a lot of stage fear earlier, now after coming to Dream life skills programs, I have no stage fear; I can speak anywhere. Earlier, I used to shiver with fear when any teacher asked me any question. I used to get tense about thinking whether my answer will be right or wrong. But now I am in a position to answer to any questions asked by the teachers without any fear. I visited my relative’s house in the Dasara holidays, where all relatives planned to make a game. I took the leadership of one group in that game and we won the game at the end. Everyone started praising me. I felt overwhelmed! Everyone asked how I became so active as opposite to my earlier nature of being a silent girl. I told them its due to dream life skills. Not only at my relative circle, but in classes and at house also, I am mingling with others with ease, and I make a lot of friends now.”

“I want to become a fashion designer in my life; else I will become a doctor.”

Organization and Programme Updates (November 2012 – January 2012):

We continue to deliver our core life skills programmes –114 batches are run across 18 locations in Bangalore - 51 batches in Life skill through Arts and 63 batches in Life skill through Football. Young people from our football program participated in SPT tournament and the team won 4-0 there.
Two Outdoor Experiential Camps were conducted engaging 80 children.
154 young people were benefited from Life Skills for Career Development training at our Dream Connect Center, which offers the tools and foundational life skills necessary for career development. We are also happy to share with you that Girish, one of our graduate and employee, has been selected to be part of 1 year course in US through community college initiative conducted by the US consulate.
A 2-day training session was organized with Play for Peace to train our Life skill facilitators and lead facilitators with different ways and mediums like puppet making to interact with young people to make sessions more effective.
Dreamers Unlimited – A volunteer evening was organized to get the volunteers to interact and appreciate their time and efforts. Everyone left inspired to do more to give back to the community. Read more about the evening in this blog post http://dreamadream.org/2012/12/volunteer-evening/
50 excited volunteers have signed up to attend the second cycle of our mentor training which started on 13^th January and 4 volunteers have signed up to become mentor trainers and the training started on 16^th January.
Unlock 10K smiles – A fundraising campaign was launched on Jan 1^st with the intention to make 2013 - A year of happiness. We urge you to make a small contribution and unlock smiles.

We look forward to your continued support and enduring relationship!

P.S. - Both links attached below

Dream A Dream’s 10K Smiles campaign was featured in the Hindu. Check out the article through the attached link
To unlock smiles click on the link below.

Thank You!!

Volunteers bonding through celebration

Snapshot from Gowri's Creative Arts session

Links:

Article in The Hindu about our "Unlock Smiles" Campaign

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Oct 15, 2012
Small Steps to Big Success!!

By Shilpa P.A. | Anchor - Fundraising and Communications

Fun in Learning

Its rightly said “The grand essentials of happiness are: something to do, something to love, and something to hope for” ~ Allan K. Chalmers

Thank You for adding these Something’s to the life of many young people from vulnerable backgrounds through our (Dream A Dream's) Life Skill Programs by giving them hope for the best from their future and also by bringing in a caring adult into their life in the form of a life skill facilitator or a mentor.

One such Hope and Aspiration is of Raju's (name changed).
Raju has been a part of our football program for the last two years. He is currently studyig in 8th standard at our partner organization. When he came into our program, he was not very interested. He used to do what the coach told him, but he was very lazy in all the activities and used foul language during the session. With regular attendance to the sessions, he gradually started improving both his football skills and even in his behaviour. He used to help the facilitator and soon started building strong relationships with the other members of the team. From then on, he was happy. He told the facilitator that he would listen to everyone and respect his elders. When asked, whether it was the program that had led to these changes? and if so, why had he changed. He said that the program had previously been focused on learning football skills but now the focus is on teaching life skills as a part of the curriculum. He said that the team agreements helped him to make changes in his behaviour both inside and outside the game. He started to take initiative during the games and behave responsibly during the sessions. If he had any doubts, he would clarify them in the session itself and he often came out with some very powerful and relevant questions. “I feel like I too have changed through my involvement in the program. I learned better ways to behave with my elders and with younger children, responsibility, how to take initiative and most importantly, I learned how to be a leader and I’m really happy I learned this because it is a very good quality to have. I have learned that I have to be a good soccer player and the importance of relationships, not only in soccer but also in my life outside of the game. The football program has made a lot of changes in my life and I know how to work hard to achieve a bright future for myself.”

He also quotes: “I have never seen this kind of program and it makes me feel good. The first session is one of the most memorable days of my life. I have been playing football since I was 10 and I used to play very selfishly. Once I lost a game due to my selfishness and this made me realise that being selfish is very bad and you can’t score a goal if you behave like that. After going to some sessions, I have become much more honest, my football skills are a lot better and there have even been changes in my life. Thank you Dream A Dream!”

Organization and Program Updates:

We have now reached out to 3152 children enrolled in our core life skills programs – 1737 in Life skills Through Sports and 1415 in Life skills Through Arts. Over 108 batches are run across 17 locations in Bangalore - 48 batches in Life skill through Arts and 60 batches in Life skill through Football.
Two of our young adults were selected for a 1-year Professional Dance Development Certificate Program which is a scholarship by Lourd Vijay Dance Studio.
Four Outdoor Experiential Camps were conducted engaging 122 children and 23 volunteers. This is what one of our volunteer had to say after the camp “Still contemplating all the amazing things I have experienced this weekend... thanks Dream A Dream for giving me the opportunity to volunteer for one of your Outdoor Experiential Camps! Loved it!”
300 young adults successfully completed their Life Skills for Career Development training at our DreamConnect Center, which offers the tools and foundational life skills necessary for career development.
60 young adults attended our very first Alumni Meet at the DreamConnect center. It was overwhelming to see the excitement and enthusiasm that the youths had upon learning about the different educational/career opportunities available to them. Everyone walked home with a smile and hope in their heart.
We have started our 6-week Facilitation training in partnership with PYE Global-Partnership with youth empowerment where 16 Lead Trainers are being trained and prepared to deliver trainings across the country.
Mr. Vishal Talreja, our Cofounder and Executive Director represented Dream A Dream at the StreetFootballworld and Sony European Graduate Program which happened in Libson, Portugal. Dream A Dream is a network member with Streetfootballworld Network has been one of the two organizations selected for the SONY European Graduate Programme Enterprise Project. As part of this project 5 of SONY’s Graduate Students have been selected to support Dream A Dream with establishing a strategic partnership with a sports based club, association or company to further Dream A Dream’s scale plans. The graduates will be volunteering offline with Dream A Dream between September 2012 – January 2013 on this project as part of their leadership development.
Ms. Suchetha Bhat, our Head-Strategy was featured in the local newspaper, Bangalore Mirror, where she talks about our Dream Mentoring program. Please click on the link to read the article http://www.bangaloremirror.com/article/81/20120922201209222022029779692d076/Wanted-not-teachers-but-awakeners.html

All this has been possible only due to the undying commitment and support from donors like YOU, who have helped us, Dream A Dream, to continue to reach out to many more young people in helping them unleash their potential and take over the life’s challenges with confidence.

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