The words “juvenile” and “child”, despite being synonymous, have varied connotations for most people. While we dedicate a 14th November to Children’s Day, a whole bunch of these children get unintentionally shelved as juveniles. This year, we decided to take Children’s day celebrations to a place where it was really required.
The Tehelka Foundation has been working with Juveniles in Conflict with law for over two years now. As part of our Threads of Humanity programme, we have had the opportunity to work steadily on a daily basis over the last two months with the Juveniles at the Sewa Kutir Observation home . Through our student volunteers from Delhi University, we have been able to facilitate a range of constructive interventions through art and informal counseling with the boys at the waiting room.
On Children’s day we took this programme a step forward organizing a Wall painting activity in the central corridor of the home! 35 boys from the home and 20 volunteers from DU were guided by famous artist and writer, Bulbul Sharma, worked hard to repaint the walls and make the corridor more vibrant.
The boys at the home are charged with crimes such as murder, rape, thefts, arson. Yet when interacting with our volunteers, who were predominantly girls, they were gentle and articulate. In fact the painting worked as an ice breaker and several of the boys opened up to us about their likes, dislikes and life stories!
Post painting, we played a few games together, sand songs and sat together chatting! As Bulbul put some finishing touches to the repainted walls through beautiful nature images, some of the boys assisted her, humming tunes and working brush strokes. It was a wonderful warm atmosphere of equality and respect that had a visible effect on both groups of young people – the juveniles and the University students. Bulbul who has created several pieces of art on display at the National Gallery of Modern Art and Lalit Kala Akademi, was all praise for her talented assistants!
The surprisingly warm response from the boys had many volunteers amazed! The boys were of course more than happy with their Children’s day and are looking forward to more interactions with the volunteers.
Children\’s day Painting with Bulbul Sharma
If You would like to volunteer, please mail us at info.tehelkafoundation@gmail.com.