Give Children Wings to their Dreams

Dear Codreamers,

We are excited to share with you the journey of Dream A Dream of the last quarter of the financial year 2013-14. One of the main highlights of the programme is the Life Skills Assessment Scale developed by Dr. David Pearson and Dr. Fiona Kennady from UK who have been working together with Dream A Dream over the past years to develop and publish a standardized and reliable impact measure for Dream A Dream’s Life Skills Programmes for young people from vulnerable backgrounds. Their immense work has resulted in a paper co-authored by them with Dream A Dream Cofounder and Chief Executive Officer, Vishal Talreja. This has been accepted for publication in Social Behavior and Personality, an international journal for March 2014.

With this report I would want to share with you the story of Alisha (name changed) as observed by our facilitator followed by a few highlights of our organization and programmes. 

Meet Alisha a 14 year old girl who is studying in the 8th and 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.

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 continued her one-on-one conversation with Alisha with a focus to build her strength, resilience and ability to deal with this discrimination. 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, Alisha became interested in attending the sessions and gradually the other participants noticed Alisha’s interest and talent.

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.

The facilitator gradually noticed that Alisha started taking leadership, engaging with others and learning to deal with her feelings when others were teasing her.

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.

Organisational and Programme 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 be 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.

• Engaged 5369 young people through our life skills through football and arts programme. This includes 2533 boys and 2836 ratio also 52.8% girls ratio.

• We run total178 batches partnering 24 schools and NGO,s across Bangalore, of which 106 batches are in Life Skills through Arts programme and 72 batches are in Life Skills through Sports programme.

• 355 young people graduated from the core life skills programme in March 2014.

• 36 Life Skills facilitators trained to deliver the curriculum based sessions.
• Conducted a total of 16 camps engaging 562 young people for 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%.

• 483 young people have completed over 55 hours of training at the Dream Connect Center.

• Engaged 755 young people engages in Last Mile Support programme 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.

• 44 applications for scholarships have been received so far out of which 28 have been granted scholarships.

• As part of the ‘Kalarava” initiative, 200 graduates were engaged in new learning exposures. This includes 76 young people in Q4.

• 28 Dream Connect graduates have been engaged in the Dream Mentoring Programme.

• Enrolled 132 teachers in Q4 in our 4-workshop Teacher Development Programme.

• 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.

• Completed 2 mentor training cycles and trained 35 adult volunteers in Q4 establishing 35 new mentor and mentee relationships.

• Total 135 volunteering hours captured to mentoring programme.

• Established 100 relationships in 2013-14through 4 cycles of training and engagement.

• Engaged 678 volunteers and clocked 8,254 hours in Q4. Total for 2013-14 is 2214 volunteers and 25,341 hours.

• Conducted 13 fundays engaging 439 volunteers clocking 2011 volunteering hours in January to March 2014. 

• Conducted 56 fundays involving 17 corporates and 4 educational institutions engaging 1713 volunteers clocking 6654 hours in 2013-14.

 Please scroll down to see our programme pictures :)

We look forward to your continued support and enduring relationship.Thank You!!

With Gratitude,

Dream Team