Sapne Aam Aadmi ke, our Yuva Ekta street play is being staged at St. Mary’s school, Safdarjung Enclave on Saturday 4th September.

SCHOOL STUDENTS who are interested in coming and being part of the audience are welcome to be part of the same. Mail us on Facebook or at subhadra@tehelka.com for details on entry, time, etc

The students also had a great time painting pots at the venue along with Himanshu and his team from the Genda Phool project. Unleashing their creativity on a bright Saturday morning, the students made up for scarcity of brushes by using their hands and the genda flowers and adorned the pots in some beautiful hues and patterns.

Here are a few pictures of the plantation activities.

In addition to the Interact Club, it was our first interaction with the senior school boys in this session and the batch of XI grade youngsters responded enthusiastically to the issue.

“It is very heart breaking to know that while we in the urban areas are playing computer games and eating out all the time, there are children dying in the slums because they have none of the facilities we get so easily.” said Rohan Saxena

“We should also spread awareness about family planning and birth control so that they have small families and the finances are less divided and maximum attention be paid to each child”. – S. Rajagopala Rao XI C

“I would personally like to go to a jhuggi nearby and check how many children they have, what are the hygiene conditions, and analyze the conditions there. I am dividing my action plan into two parts

-         Sidharth Mahesh

“We could also do a kind of picnic in the slum where we go and interact with the children, play with them; share our stories and our food. And from here we can build on a project on child mortality with them”. – Raunaq Chawari

“Students could be motivated to participate because they need to involve themselves in social work to add to their profiles for CCE, GRE, etc.” – Nikhit Mago

Our small session with the Interact Club boys to introduce them to the topic also brought in some great suggestions; Vatsal Sharma of class IX exclaimed, “Its outrageous!! Instead of spending Rs. 36,000 crores on the CWG, the government should have invested in public health.”

“The basic need for all Indians is to create awareness amongst all of us and ensure the people take proper measures to reduce poverty and child mortality. Human life is precious and we must learn to respect and protect it” wrote  Rishabh Shukla.

We hope to be able to carry forward this initiative and convert their empathy into solid action. The students recognized areas like Ashoka Place, slums outside their own school and Harijan Basti near The Hyatt as possible target groups to work with.

The documentary films on the issue of child mortality shook the students out of their complacency. Every 15 seconds a child dies in India, averaging a shocking 2 million children every year!  What made a deeper impact was that most die of easily preventable diseases like diarrhea and pneumonia.

The students shared some very though provoking suggestions.

-         “We should go to these slum areas and collect information on what they eat, how they live and what are the problems they are facing. Then we should educate them and help them to get more information about these problems.” – Mayank

-         “We could supply them with some basic first aid like antiseptics, ORS, bandages, etc and we should make them aware of the latest government schemes like free treatment in government hospitals, free vaccines, etc”. – Vivek Singh

-         “We should use the RTI to ask the government what it is doing about the condition of these people and take actions according to that we should take action.” – Lalit Kumar

-         “We should have medical camps where we educate people from the slums about easy solutions to diseases like diarrhea, pneumonia, malaria, dengue, etc”. – Poonam

-         “We could distribute healthy food to the slum children once a week. We could also make handicrafts and sell them to collect money for the poor.” – Simran

-         “We should form groups and take up this campaign, going to villages and slums and talking to the families who have suffered such problems. We should organize a meal plan for the poor families and contribute the best we can.” – Rakshita

Suggestions for slums in which the students could work included Bangali Colony, Kidwai Nagar, and Arjun Das jhuggi, Laxmi Bai Nagar.

The Foundation intends to take forward today’s interaction into a concrete community project which the students and staff together take ownership of, and make a lasting impact on the community they engage with. In the spirit of true citizenship!

This year we chose issues of Hunger, Hygiene and Infant Mortality, a part of Save the Children’s EVERY ONE campaign, so that in the coming months, the play can be used as an advocacy tool in different slums, community centres and schools.

SAPNE AAM AADMI KE is a sharp comment on the hypocrisy within our society, on issues of survival that the common man seems entrapped within, and the gender inequity that is still widely prevalent today. It seeks to inspire him soar beyond his daily bindings, release his fears and anxieties and direct his passion towards creating a New World, where Love and Respect is a given for every living being.

Having worked on this theme during the summer break, we intend to take forward these same messages to schools in Delhi during the new academic term.

Today, we engaged with the students of Class XI C and D from Kendriya Vidyalaya, Vigyan Vihar and left them with some important information on child mortality,  focusing on the proximity of such cases to their relatively sheltered lives.

Ms. Meenu Wadhwa, their co-curricular teacher,  believes that it is important to shift the students’ focus from “low waists and spikes” to  socially relevant issues that they can engage with. After screening short documentaries on the topic, the interaction that followed showed this shift of focus. The students came up with some great suggestions to tackle the issue of child mortality.

-         “We should make people aware of the common diseases and should tell them about the simple cures to them. We should put up boxes in shopping malls so that these rich people can donate some money and help the poor people.” – Ambuj Tripathi

-         “We should go to every house in the slums and tell them that a) they should keep their house clean, b) if their children fall sick they should immediately take them to the nearest government hospital,  c) if there are mosquitoes, etc in there area they should contact the MCD to get rid of them.” – Sidharth Sharma

-        ” If we contribute the amount of money we spend on unnecessary stuff  towards this cause, it’ll help someone to buy clothes, proper food, proper medical treatment and educate them.” – Neha

-         “If there’s a festival, instead of wasting money on gifts and dresses for ourselves, we should think about people in the slums and help them with things they really need.” – Sukhmeet Jaswal

-         “Doctors should treat poor people free of cost.” – Vaibhav

-       “We should cut down on our daily junk food and give that money to help feed poor children.” -Shashank

-         “Once a week, we should take hygienically cooked food and distribute it to deprived children.” – Monica

Outcomes:

The Foundation intends to take forward this interaction into a year long community project in which the students of KV Vigyan Vihar adopt a nearby slum and conduct a survey about the state of health and hygiene amongst the slum dwellers.

They  start an advocacy campaign focusing on the health of the children and women in the slum, and devise ways to improve their present conditions.

Some of the suggestions that came from the children this morning included contributing their pocket money towards buying hygienic food for the slum children, donating some of the money they spend on junk food, crackers etc. so that each family could be given packets of ORS to keep at home, in case of an emergency.

We are keen for the students to take ownership of the campaign they will be spearheading in the slum nearby. Their involvement in the community can only reap rich dividends for them, as they begin to realize that the rights and responsibilities of a citizen go hand in hand.

Today was an important beginning.

Here is some of their beautiful handiwork :

“Sapne Aam Aadmi ke”,our street play that evolved during the Yuva Ekta Summer workshops by the students of Salaam Baalak Trust, Bluebells School International and St. Mary’s was staged at the Observation Home for Boys II at Kingsway Camp on the 31st July, 2010.

As an extension of our work with the marginalized youth of our generation, our relationship with the Observation home goes back to last year, when we worked with Juveniles in conflict with law at the OHB -II on a play called ‘Mai bhi Insaan hoon’ . Last year’s Yuva Ekta play was also staged there on the 11th June 2009, and we went back to the boys with this year’s play!

After an power packed performance by the Yuva Ekta members, the group interacted with the boys and brought up important questions about their dreams and aspirations. The intense interaction amongst the children concluded in a game of Antakshari which saw the children break into beautiful songs, forgetting all notions of differences between them.The session ended with both the groups singing ” Aye Maalik tere bande hum”  together…in perfect harmony…

We look forward to getting more opportunities to work with the Juvenile’s not only in Kingsway Camp but also at the women’s observation home at Nirmal Chhaya.

The Being Human workshops focus on the ‘Self’ , pushing our youth to discover and express self  determining issues like the qualities and core values that define human beings. By putting the students through various situations of conflict, the workshops help understand responses to such conflict and find solutions to greed and hatred which is widespread in society today.

Aman Kothari's description of the mediatation session

The first batch of the workshops in July stretched over 3 days of intense work through tools like meditation and various creative expression exercises. The students, who began with a very disciplined first day gradually loosened up and explored absolutely new facets to themselves as well as others around them.

Mohit Mendiratta's pictorial representation of his feelings during the workshop

The Mirror exercise happened to be a favourite for most of the participants. As Ashish Kothari puts it” Following the other person’s movements was initially tricky, but as the eye contact grew stronger, it started becoming more natural.”It showed Salman Qureshi the importance of coordination and respecting the other person’ s pace.About meditation Ashish wrote ” It was a soothing experience. It was as if colours moving chaotically suddenly  came to a more uniform and slow motion.”It helped another student settle his volatile mind and helped him focus more.

Here are some pictures from the workshops.

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Sapne Aam Aadmi ke II

Sapne Aam Aadmi ke III

Sapne Aam Aadmi ke IV