Support Young People to Lead Social Change

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!

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