Education India Project #21133

Transform the lives of 3200 children in Hyderabad

by Teach For India

Transform the lives of 3200 children in Hyderabad

Project Report | Aug 27, 2020
The Dramebaaz Dream- A Fellow's story

By Navamita Mukherjee | Manager, Development and Communications

I, Amrita teach a bunch of highly energetic and passionate students from Grade 9. I still remember the first time I heard of ‘Dramebaaz’ in my school. It was probably the first week of my Fellowship and I experienced the first-hand joy of contagious excitement. “Didi, will you take us for Dramebaaz this year?” Neeraja asked. Simply based on the theatre connotations the name came with, I promised her that I would. For the uninitiated, Dramebaaz is a platform and a "Be the Change Project' at Teach For India that leverages theatre to empower students from low-income communities.

Cut to 5 months later when Dramebaaz rolled out its sign-up form and I quickly signed up two teams with the intention of inculcating in them the love I have grown up with, for theatre. Over the weeks, I had realised that my students showed a knack for drama. However, their experience was limited to stage proscenium and the usual manner of conducting street plays.

Here is where the real uphill task began. The moment I mentioned that we wouldn’t play to our strengths, I was bombarded with concerns and complaints. However, I pushed them to look at the learning and I saw them gradually embrace the same.

The two teams auditioned for their place in this year’s edition and then, the select few, worked closely on the themes and scripts they wished to take upon stage, with regular feedback from my end. They witnessed different forms of theatre and re-imagined their portrayal of the theme till they were satisfied.

We finally settled upon taking forward a Mime and a Street Play- both new styles of theatre with topics as unique of the method. By the end of it, I saw a phenomenal improvement in students with regard to their skill sets, expression, confidence and resilience.

It was an inspiring journey, which was only made sweeter when their efforts were rewarded in the form of recognition on stage.

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May 4, 2020
Empowering the 'Voice' of the Women Community

By Navamita Mukherjee | Manager, Development & Communications

Binduja's story on her project 'Voice' that empowers women of her community

"I was always around strong women in my life who exposed me to different problems faced by women in our country. This was one of the reasons I chose to work in social sector. When I was struggling with the many uncertainties in the school, the interactions with parents made me realize that their problems were deeper than I expected. My conversations with the mothers in the community made me understand the importance of safe spaces for creating strong voice. That made me start the Project “Voice” in our community, a sharing circle where each and every mother is heard. It became a space for them to take some time out from their monotonous routine, to relax and share their concerns. Our community is diverse with people from different religions. Most of the parents are not educated and conservative in their thoughts and parenting. It was difficult initially to start conversations with mothers, but gradually they opened up about their financial problems, domestic abuse and entrenched patriarchy. All these were the basic problems which are observed in every community but I could see these impacting my students the most. And the mothers never saw these as grave problems because for them it was normal. Now with project “Voice”, these women who were otherwise used to normalizing these daily issues are actively participating in being vocal about it and problem solving.

I wouldn’t have gotten this opportunity to work on such deep rooted, divergent problems had it not been for the Fellowship at Teach For India. I had plans for doing my masters in chemical engineering before joining Teach For India but the Fellowship enabled me to work on my passion of working with community women, making them heard and empowering them to be the strongest stakeholders of the society. Going further I want to pursue masters in Community Development for women studies to work with the people transforming communities where women and their opinions are given importance and respected."

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Jan 9, 2020
Leading the ed equity movement with conviction

By Navamita Mukherjee | Manager, Development & Communications

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