Give Children Wings to their Dreams

Akshay, a 21-year-old final year B. Com student studying at Government First Grade College, a college close to Dream a Dream’s Career Connect Centre in KR Puram, comes from a village which is situated 35 km away from the college. His parents are farmers but unfortunately his father due to health reasons is mostly at home leaving his mother to toil hard in the fields. His younger brother is in the 11th grade and his sister studies in the 1st grade. Being timid, shy and fearful, the image he projected to his family made them think that he needed to be protected and taken care of. So, the idea of him joining a college 35 km away was bad enough and it made them more wary when he told them that he to join extra classes/ sessions.

“A friend of mine told me about Dream a Dream’s Career Connect Centre; encouraging me to join it, he explained how I would get a chance to learn life skills there. I pestered him for more details as to how to get to the Centre from college etc., I decided to take a chance and come here. My family is very strict when it comes to me traveling by myself and that too this far every day. I always felt a lack of freedom at home”.

“Not really knowing much about what I wanted to do after my graduation, it took me some time to understand what life skills was and how important it was for my career and future. Being fearful, I didn’t know how to speak to others and interact with them. The first course I enrolled in for was Basic Computers. I slowly began to feel comfortable as I realised there was a sense of freedom in these sessions. As the sessions progressed, I found myself learning how to communicate with other students. My fear began to subside, and I started to take initiative to volunteer and help the facilitators whenever I got a chance. The more I came to the Centre, the more I felt a sense of belonging and satisfaction. From one course, I enrolled in another and then another. Today I have learnt the basics of Digital Marketing and Tally. I come to the Centre every single day, whether I’m enrolled in a course or not”.

“When I was in the 4th Grade, I used to watch a lot of Kannada television serials at home. It was while watching these serials that I first saw the actor known as Rocking Star Yash, and I was just blown away by his tremendous acting skills. I could easily relate to him the most because he too had a lot of fear inside him and it took him a lot of effort to become the star he is today. I wished I could become just like him. I first shared this dream out loud when I came to Dream a Dream. The facilitators give us guidance about our life and career, during our talk and sessions. They think of us as their own children and enable us to overcome our own problems. Sometimes I feel that they are more concerned about our careers than we ourselves are! When my friends and acquaintances came to know about my passion for acting and the wish to become an actor, they always discouraged me. They said that it wasn’t a stable career and there would be a lot of hurdles to face in order to become a great start. When the facilitators heard about my dream, they helped me go for acting classes by giving me a scholarship. They believed that I had the talent to make it big and that made me think that I could truly become an actor. That is how much they want me to succeed and follow my dream”.

“It has been three years since I have been coming to the Career Connect Centre. Some days, I help by supporting the facilitators with their sessions, other days, I am here talking to people. I have learnt how to empathize with others, by putting myself in their situation, when trying to help them solve problems. At home, they could sense that I was not fearful anymore and became convinced that it was okay for me to travel this distance twice a day. I began to feel that I had the strength and potential in me to be a supportive member to someone else and it was like my parents could suddenly see that and they began to rely on me when needed. I began to take initiative and help my family by working on the field when I’m at home, to ease the labour for my parents. I am working towards becoming an actor, giving small performances at various events and my mother is my biggest supporter”.

 Unlike young individuals who have dreams of following the mainstream professions of becoming engineers, doctors etc., Akshay wants to become an actor. What he couldn’t find in his friends and others with whom he had shared this dream with, he found his tribe at the Career Connect Centre where the facilitators believed in his acting skills and helped him get on the track towards making that a reality. Akshay has taken up a theatre course to work on his acting skills with the help of the Dream a Dream Scholarship. With the support of the facilitators and the self-belief, Akshay is confident that we will be seeing him in a movie in the coming years. This is how Akshay is thriving!

 Dream a Dream empowers young people from vulnerable backgrounds to overcome adversity and flourish in a fast-changing world, using a creative life skills approach. Dream a Dream has crafted a pedagogical method and a process - a science that allows for a re-definition of adverse circumstances by changing the lens through which the past is viewed. Our programmes seek to improve outcomes for students by creating positive learning experiences through a collaborative approach that targets young people, parents, teachers, mentors, and volunteers.

Dream a Dream works through three key programmes, ASLSP and CCP which directly impacts young people and the Teacher Development Programme (TDP) which indirectly impacts young people through teachers. In ASLSP and CCP, we use a creative life skills approach where young people can make better choices and become more meaningfully engaged. TDP engages teachers to indirectly impact young people and is designed to nurture empathy, expand their creativity, develop listening and validation skills and the ability to share with authenticity while also learning facilitation skills.

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. These videos talk about our work - https://vimeo.com/124809296 and https://vimeo.com/124817309