Give Children Wings to their Dreams

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):

1. 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.
2. Two Outdoor Experiential Camps were conducted engaging 80 children.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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/
6. 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.
7. 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

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

Thank You!!

Links:

• Article in The Hindu about our "Unlock Smiles" Campaign