Sport India Project #5718

Give Children Wings to their Dreams

by Dream A Dream

Project Report | Sep 18, 2011
Cherishing Dreams! One child at a time

By Vishal Talreja | Cofounder & Executive Director

Lead Facilitators under-going Training

The New Year at Dream A Dream started in April and in June as the school year began, 3000 children in the age group of 6-15 enrolled into our Life Skills Programs for the year. This was the most number of children we have enrolled in our programs in one quarter.

Over 97 batches are run across 16 locations in Bangalore, India, 1-2 times a week,engaging 25-30 children per batch in core Life Skills programs. This has largely being possible due to the commitments and support from donors like YOU, who have helped us build this organization – one child at a time.

A child like Vishnu.

From unlocking the computer room at 3 PM to packing up the laptops and locking it up, Vishnu would do everything. One look at him and you’ll realize that he is pretty much the star of the school, a kind of icon that his classmates look up to. Vishnu recently completed 2 years at the Dream Life Skills program teaching computers and as he graduated from this 10^th grade, his confidence was clearly visible.

Coming from a free school run by a partner charity because his parents could not afford to send him to school, Vishnu has been a story of determination and transformation.

Vishnu can be characterized by his ability to take initiative and volunteer for tasks in the sessions and at the same time committed to complete all his session plans as part of his learning. Along with completing the given activity on time, he would assist in buying snacks and packing up after the session. Being one of few who have the privilege of owning a computer, Vishnu puts it to good use. Not only does he learn and practice at home but also ensures that his peers are doing well.

Vishnu wears a naughty grin on his face, perpetually and at the same time is one of the most brilliant students in his class.

The Dream LearnIT program helped not only hone his computer skills but also helped him inculcate in himself some life skills which he began exhibiting in his behavior.

Looking ahead, one cannot deny that Vishnu’s future is bright.

We at Dream A Dream feel tremendously proud of Vishnu’s achievements and are happy that we are able to provide these experiences to over 3000 children a year now.

Some of the key highlights of the last 6 months have been:

Organizational Highlights:

Winner at the Most Outstanding Annual report Awards for the year 2009-10 hosted by CSO Partners and FMSF.
Shortlisted to present Dream A Dream’s scale plans at Ashoka Globalizer event hosted by Ashoka – Innovators for the public (www.ashoka.org). The event brought together 16 Ashoka Fellows from across the world to present their plans and models to an esteemed network of successful business entrepreneurs and seek their inputs on strengthening their plans.

Program Highlights:

3000 children enrolled in our various Life Skills Programs since June. .
Completed a Life Skills for Career Development program during the summer for 130 young people enrolled in our DreamConnect Program. The program will continue for another 600 young adults through the year.
Completed “Lead Facilitator” training for 8 Trainers in partnership with PYE Global in early July. This is an ongoing partnership to develop a team of Lead Facilitators for our scale plans.
Completed a Teacher Training Program on Life Skills Development for a school in Munirabad, Belgaum as part of our prototype scale plans
Completed 3 Teacher Training workshops on Life Skills Development and Creative Facilitation for staff from Agastya Foundation as part of our prototype scale plans
With support from Grassroot Soccer (GRS), South Africa we have completed the “Life Skills Thru Football (LSTF)” Curriculum. This curriculum has been developed for children from Grad 4 to Grad 10, encompassing 40 sessions a year (structured and unstructured)
With support from GRS we have completed the “Training of Life Skills Facilitators Manual” to deliver the LSTF Curriculum. The manual covers 4 primary areas of Dream A Dream Engagement with children/youth. These include Giving Praise, Creating a Safe Space, Building Personal connections and having Vital Conversations.
Completed a 5-day intensive training for all Life Skills Facilitators in our LSTF program. The training was conducted by GRS representative Taylor Downs alongwith Lead Facilitators from Dream A Dream.

We look forward to this year with excitement and hope. Everyday brings a smile on our face when we see a child taking on challenges in their life with determination and commitment. You are an integral part of this journey and YOUR support makes all the difference.

We have just launched a campaign to enroll 200 donors in our monthly giving program. You can sign-up to be a monthly giver at GlobalGiving and ensure that every child at Dream A Dream is able to graduate successfully from our Life Skills program just as Vishnu did.

Thank you. Do visit our website for continued updates at www.dreamadream.org

Children in Life Skills Thru Creative Arts Program

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Jun 16, 2011
Dream A Dream surges ahead with your support!

By Vishal Talreja | Cofounder & Executive Director

Children engaging with Volunteers

Greetings from Dream A Dream!

Someone rightly said, "Every child can be reached; you just have to stretch far enough." ~ Copyright © 2006 Robyn Sorrell. At Dream A Dream, it is a consistent endeavour to reach out to many more like you to support our effort to reach out to every child we can.

Thank you very much for coming forward to support Dream A Dream with your generous contributions.

The funds contributed by you will help Dream A Dream continue to strengthen and deepen its work with its 3000 children. Here is a few examples of how;

Faheem is 17-years old and after being part of the Life Skills Programs at Dream A Dream, he started volunteering in our computer education program to support other children like him. “I am putting my free time to use. Since I attend evening college, I have a lot of time during the day. My experience with Dream A Dream was extremely good. I learned a huge amount in such a small amount of time. It's amazing working with children.”

Here is another story from one of our facilitators as they heard it from Saraswathi, a young adult at Dream A Dream.

Saraswathi is 15 years old and lives with her father, mother and sisters. When she was in her high school she got associated with Dream A Dream and participated in their various Life Skills Development programs. The participation gave her courage and self-confidence. This inspired her to study well and complete her 10th standard. It made her sad that she would not be able to keep in touch with Dream A Dream (since she was leaving the school). But then she got to know of a new opportunity – Life Skills for Career Development at the DreamConnect Center run by Dream A Dream. They were offering Spoken English Classes over the summer vacation.

Sarawathi was delighted and joined the program. Meanwhile, her 10th grade board exams results were announced and she passed in flying colours. However, she was anxious because she was unable to choose a particular stream of college education (Arts/Commerce/Science). DreamConnect introduced her to a Career Counselor and through an assessment she confidently chose to pursue a degree in Commerce.

Since then, she has been a regular at the DreamConnect center. Saraswathi expresses her gratitude and hopes that more youth will benefit in future.

In the year 2011-12, Dream A Dream has impacted the lives of 3000 children and young adults like Faheem and Saraswathi with your belief and faith in us.

Do check out our latest updated and sign up for our monthly newsletter at www.dreamadream.org. We would also love to hear from you about how else you can support us and how we can build this community of supporters.

Thank you and look forward to hearing from you,

With Dreams,

Vishal Talreja

Co-founder & Executive Director

Dream A Dream

www.dreamadream.org

Dream A Dream is a professional NGO focused on empowering children from vulnerable backgrounds by developing life skills and at the same time creating a sensitive community through active volunteering. We offer high quality, high-impact after-school life skills learning programs to over 3000 children every year using mediums such as sports, outdoor adventure, creative arts, computer education, mentoring and Life Skills for career development.

The children largely come from vulnerable backgrounds such as orphans, abandoned or runaway children and many of them from Bangalore’s urban slum communities. While their basic needs of food, clothing, shelter and education are taken care of, Dream A Dream provides them the critical opportunities to develop skills such as creative thinking, decision making, team skills, communication and inter-personal skills amongst others that are so crucial to help them breakout of the cycle of poverty.

You will be delighted to know that Dream A Dream was recently announced as the Winner of the “Outstanding Annual Report of the Year Award”. The CEO of CSO Partners stated, “We congratulate you for upholding high standards of transparency and disclosure in this most important credibility building tool.”

Dream A Dream has been a Regional Finalist at the India NGO Awards in 2007 & 2009; Runner-up at the Outstanding Annual Report Awards in 2008 & 2009 and a Runner-up at the Global Award for Most Innovative Development Project 2010.

Children at a Dream Life Skills Program

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Mar 15, 2011
Giving Children Wings To Their Dreams

By Anuradha Adya | Communications

Pallavi from the LearnIT

Dear Donors,

Pallavi is a 15-year old, studying in the 10^th Grade at a Charity-Run Free school for children from very poor family background. Two years back, she enrolled into Dream A Dream’s various Life Skills Development Programs.

Today, Pallavi is a confident spokeswoman for the girls in her batch. She leads group activities boldly and with spunk. Pallavi recently successfully completed two years in the Dream LearnIT program (A Life Skills through Computer Education program) and graduated with the rest of her class.

In the beginning, she was an introvert and bashful. In the two years that she has been engaged with Dream A Dream, her life seems to have taken a 360 degree turn. Coupled with the LearnIT program was the influence of her sister, Sunita, a student of the LearnIT program and a year older to Pallavi. Slowly but steadily Pallavi left her inhibitions behind to evolve into a poised young lady approaching problems head-on. While in the beginning, she directed her doubts to her friends, she started clearing her confusion with the volunteers and facilitators towards the end of the program. The exposure and Life Skills that come along with the LearnIT program have helped Pallavi immensely. The change is there for everyone to see. Pallavi is just one child from the 2500 we have reached out to this year.

We are happy to bring you the report for the last quarter of the year 2010-2011[Jan-Mar]. This year we have touched the Lives of 2500 children from across our 11 Partner charities. The Dream Life Skills Programs are specially designed to develop critical life skills that are required in children to help them become positive and contributing members of the society. Key Life skills focused on are Interpersonal communication, ability to take initiative, ability to manage conflicts, ability to overcome challenges and solve problems and the ability to understand and follow instructions. The Life Skills programs using mediums such as sports, creative arts, computer education, mentoring, outdoor adventure provide an opportunity to children to step outside their boundaries and push their comfort zones. Activities are designed to bring about a sense of belonging, a sense of making significant contribution and a sense of achievement. We bring to you the impact and culminating events of each of our Core programs below.

1] Dream Creative Arts.

(Children aged 8-14 years receive 8 hours of intervention per month for the entire academic year from facilitators trained in life skills approach to facilitating]

1007 Children participated in our Creative arts Program over the entire year. Dream A Dream Holds annual exhibitions in each of the centers exhibiting the beautiful work of the participating children. This year each and every exhibition has brought out some amazing talent, like Pot painting, clay modeling, and painting on various other materials. Artwork using many kinds of materials These were splashed the walls of the exhibition with color as much as they also colored the dreams of these children.

2] Dream Football

(Children aged 8-14 years receive 8 hours of intervention per month for the entire academic year from coaches trained in life skills approach to facilitating]

1320 Children have been trained in Football this year through .Our Football teams have done us proud in 2 annual events .Dream footballteam participated in the HOMELESS WORLD CUP held in Nagpur in February this year and has been awarded the Fair Play Award. 3 of the team were further selected for round 3. If selected for the national team they will go on to play the International matches in Paris.

INSIDE FOOTBALL is an Annual event for all the teams from the centers. One beautiful Saturday,14 energetic matches and 2 teams emerged Winners. The winners were awarded certificates of achievement.

3] Dream Connect

(Older children aged 14-18 years receive 16 sessions from volunteer facilitators having knowledge of computer applications and internet and trained in the life skills approach)

Bits and Bytes is the annual IT event for each center to display IT skills they have learnt through the year. Every center put up beautiful presentations and did us proud in front of their teachers and parents.431 Children have taken part in the Learn IT program.

Dream Mentoring is in progress. 25 Mentors are being matched to young adults from the Dream centers .These mentors will remain with the children for 12 sessions over a period of 4-6 months, helping them through turbulent times by just being there for them.

4] Fun days and Adventure Camps.

(Children aged 8-14 years receive outdoor camping opportunity for 2-4 days under the guidance of trained adventure specialist and volunteers)

Adventure camp closed on a high note. Reaching 881 children through 25 camps .These camps are instrumental in honing skills of adjustment, courage, sharing, caring and sense of achievement and of belonging to a group. All of which are important life skills for the school children.

1083 Children participated in 24 Fun-days. These are day outings for the children to the Museums / parks/ gardens and places of historical importance in the city.

We would like to thank the dedicated team of volunteers [We had 645 active volunteers] for engaging with us in such a positive and contributing way and contributing nearly 13000 hours. And we would like to thank all of you whose contributions have been used in the meaningful programs bringing joy and the possibility of the choice of a better tomorrow to all our children.

Web: www.dreamadream.org
FB: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Dream-A-Dream/189948419595

Adventure Camp at Savanadurga

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