Support Young People to Lead Social Change

This time, we have a story directly from one of our youth leaders, Shikhar, who is engaged in a programme that you are supporting!

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My journey as a youth leader has been an exercise in empathy. It’s a journey where I was nudged to navigate unfamiliar spaces, to encounter stories which are often muted and, most importantly, to learn and introspect.

I facilitated sessions on Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) with a group of pre-adolescent boys in Nizamuddin Basti, an urban slum in Delhi. The CSE curriculum aims not only to address biological aspects of sexual health but also the social aspects, such as violence, relationships, gender identity and sexuality.

Looking at the curriculum and seeing all these themes, neatly divided into a dozen 2 hour sessions, I almost convinced myself that “this shouldn’t be hard”. As I sat amongst the participants, I thought to myself that I will be addressing ideas of equality and empathy, helping these young boys accommodate diverse identities in their communities. Until I realized that most of the participants are more familiar with the surface of the moon than sexual anatomy.

How can I even begin to address the discrimination faced by people who identify as queer if the participants don't have an understanding of what gender and sexual identity is? To address all the technical information and also the social aspects in a 2 hour session whilst making sure most of them were still awake was a challenge. I realized it was impossible for me to give them all the “right” answers, perhaps, all I can do is to enable them to embrace questions.

We started building a safe space for ourselves. I say ‘we’ because it was really the participants and I together who came up with some basic rules (such as, to listen to one another, not mock each others suggestions or questions) for our sessions. Asking questions became a central part of our sessions, imparting information was only secondary. These questions ranged from banal and mundane to extremely personal.

Once, for instance, a boy drew something on his palm and showing me he asks, “what is this?” He had drawn what looked like a sanitary napkin. Something he had seen in advertisements but did not know its name or what it was used for. This question allowed me to not only tell him what a sanitary napkin was but also what menstruation is and, eventually, addressing the stigmas and myths associated with it, something which I couldn't have communicated effectively if the participants had not asked the question.

I am grateful for the space that we marked out as a group was ours and it was perhaps the only space where we did not have to censor our questions to gain indepth insights about ourselves, our bodies and our health. 

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We would like to thank Shikhar for sharing his experience with us and also express our gratitute to our supporters for continuing to pave paths and create enabling environments for changemakers and youth leaders such as Shikhar - Thank You!

Links:

• Find out more about our programmes here

Vaishnavi is a peer educator as part of the Blending Spectrum Program and runs a Music Club at Sunder Nagar Nursery which is an urban slum community in Delhi, India. Community intervention was a rather new and daunting task for Vaishnavi especially during the initial days because she was working with children from diverse backgrounds. Her vision was not just to introduce music as a recreational activity but also as a source of creativity and expression.

She conducted a needs assessment with the students to understand their musicality and knowledge in order to formulate an appropriate curriculum. She introduced various musical activities like ‘Musical Passing the Parcel’ and ‘Sargam on the Beat’ (Melody on the Beat) in the form of ice-breakers to first establish a comfortable rapport among the students. Gradually, she introduced them with the concept of notes and rhythm. She started off with the seven notes of Hindustani Classical Music. At first, the biggest challenge that she faced was that the students were mainly exposed to Bollywood songs and classical Alankaars and Sargam was a rather boring exercise. She started teaching various inspirational, spiritual and social cause-related songs as an incentive during every lesson.

Following this, she emphasised on the importance of correct breathing techniques whilst singing and they did a couple of breathing exercises during the beginning of every lesson. What worked the most during her lessons was the concept of learning through teaching. The group of children formed inner and outer circles consisting of students that were ahead in terms of their musical knowledge and the ones lagging behind, respectively. The outer circle helped their peers in the inner circle to come up to their level. This gave them a sense of leadership and team work and helped eradicate the feeling of competition.

Other than the technical aspects of music, the group also had open conversations about artists they are most inspired by, they discussed the meanings of the songs that they learned and listened to instrumental music wherein, she asked the students to reflect on the themes that the lyrics-less music represented. These open lessons developed their imagination and creativity and compelled them to think about the themes they had not talked about before. Themes revolved around social cause, aspirations and personal development.

According to Vaishnavi, the best part about these lessons was that her students were diligent and they had a certain eagerness to learn. They used to come and start practicing even before she reached and they thoroughly revised everything that was being taught. It always gave her a great sense of satisfaction as a peer educator. Due to your generous and continued support, Vaishnavi has been able to continue her work as a peer educator – thank you so much!

Links:

• Find out more about our programmes here