Children - The Change Maker

In December, Kishor Mandal (event for adolescent boys) and Kishori Mandal (event for adolescent girls) were held. 109 girls attended Kishori Mandal and 93 boys attended Kishor Mandal. This year’s theme was decision making, goal setting, and leadership. Some activities were strategic and required critical thinking and presenting arguments. Others were more energetic and encouraging team members to cheer each other into completing an exercise.

One activity involved body image where groups of children were each given a bar of soap and asked to create a pitch to sell the product. Ultimately, the activity was to get children thinking about how advertisements change how they perceive their own self-image.  For the girls, Rakshaben Bhatt, a high school english teacher and historical photographer, presented a powerpoint of photos she took in Ladakh. The girls were very curious and enamored by the beautiful landscapes.  For the boys, Sanjaybhai Desai, trustee of Bhavnagar Blood Bank, past trustee of Shaishav and current principal of Visuddhanand High School talked about how to be a leader.  The children listened to stories about the honored guests’ lives, accomplishments, and challenges.  They were also encouraged to give feedback on each activity so that Shaishav could adjust future program to their interests. 

January started off with the Annual Balsena Event.  275 children from 12 different points were taken to a local school for fun, food, and activities with the Shaishav bus.  Participatory activities were planned that would allow the children to fully engage in discussions about important values such as leadership, problem solving and decision making.  The children watched the film Poorna, which is about a 12 year old girl from Telegana whom climbed Mt. Everest.  It is a story about willpower, and courage triumphing over personal fears and limitations.  The film was well received and they still talk about fondly nearly a month later! 

Several activities were setup in different classroom throughout the day. In a leadership activity, children were split in to groups where all but one child wore a blindfold, the child that wasn’t wearing blindfold needed to guide the group through an obstacle course setup in the room.  Prior to tying the blindfolds, a few minutes were given for the children to strategize about how the leader will accomplish this.  The leaders were only allowed to use non-verbal cues, meaning gestures like tapping or gently pushing.  Each group had unique ways of communicating with their leaders and the activity was well received.

Decision-making and the importance of time was new topic that was introduced at this year's event.  The kids were asked to think about how much time the spent on several activities during their daily life.  For instance, how much time did they spend watching tv?  They were asked to cut a length of ribbon that was in proportion to how much time they estimated…as honestly as they could!  The activity was meant to get kids thinking about how they spent their time and what activities they could do instead.

At the end of the day, the Balsena President and Vice President gave a presentation on the highlights of the years and accomplishments of Balsena members.

In Lokshala, children have begun a new English curriculum designed by Bhoomi College student, Manoj in December. Guided by AIF Fellow, Maitreyi, the children enjoy writing the alphabet and sounding out words. Special techniques are used to increase retain of vocabulary and to make sure that children able to apply phonics to sound out words rather than memorize the words.

Maitreyi has also worked with the Lokshala facilitators to develop ways to engage other senses such as touch rather than just sight and hearing to engage children in academic subjects such as Math and English. Children who are just learning to write the alphabet and numbers are given a piece of Play Doh and asked to mold the colorful cool pliable clay into the different characters. Having the opportunity to play like this while learning has left the children looking forward to Lokshala more than ever!

For Holi, children celebrated with a Dry Holi. In recognition of water’s scarcity and eliminate its waste, Dry Holi uses avoids the use of pichkaris, which are like water guns. Instead, the children painted on newspapers and were given small amounts of safe colored powders to smear on each other.

Shaishav participants whom were active members and council members, a total of 42 children, were invited to our leadership camp. The camp had two major themes.  First, a discussion about the importance of Balsena and how it strengthens its participants was held.  This was help promote solidarity in the collective and inspire children to its mission of ending child labor and demand basic rights to education and protection.  Next, the structure of the collective was reviewed.  Children learned about how inclusion was a central tenet of Balsena and crucial to the success of it.  Activities that acted out scenarios where collective decision making, and participation were needed to for a positive outcome.  After this overnight camp, the leadership camp participants were asked to apply their training.  For four days at Shaishav headquarters, camp participants lead workshops for 3 days with Balsena collectives from different neighborhoods. 

During Navratri and Diwali, Balsena celebrated with 5 celebrations in different locations.  During Diwali, a children’s fair with rangoli, paper crafts with greeting cards, and decorating diyas was planned.  Balsena’s active members lead children through the activities. 

In November, Wenlido training was given to around 180 girls. For 3 hours, an introduction training is given for girls aged 11-16 years old.  Girls are given scenarios to work through and judged on their decision-making skills.  Prior to the beginning of the training, the girls are asked about situations that they may have felt unsafe in or when they think Wenlido may apply to.   This helped shape the Wenlido so that it helped our children deal with situations specific to their neighborhood.  The training was highly successful, in fact, one of our Balsena members recounted an episode which happened after the training.

Sangita: “I learnt about Wenlido- Personal Safety Training from Balsena. Once I was going home from school after taking 10th board receipt. I was with one of my friends. The road we took was deserted, only once in awhile people took that road. While we were on the road, two boys on Honda bike came, and asked for our number, we didn’t respond. They came back, and asked us if we wanted to come with them. We couldn’t keep quiet now, we told “Do you want Police’s number?” They said they had, and went. They came back again, and asked us, where we lived, my friend didn’t say anything, So I started. I started saying things loudly, after seeing me, my friend also started. Many people now gathered around, and we left from there, safely. I was very proud of myself that time.”

Mid-November, Shaishav members became busy with festivities and rallies for Child Right’s Week from the 14-20th.  Children started off the week with rallies at the bus station, train station, and schools calling for an end to child labor and their right to education.  Other activities were organized with ChildLine, the national help hotline.  Around 10,100 pamplets explaining the hotline were distributed to children and parents.  350 ChildLine stickers along with 30 banners were put up around Bhavnagar. Activities were also planned for differently abled children, such as paper crafts and group games.

In addition to Child Right’s week and holiday celebrations, at two locations, the Balsena children went for an exposure visit. One was the RTO (Regional Transport Office), to understand the traffic rules and why it is important to have a license, and learned to procedures to obtain a license.  The second group visited a garden as a celebration after exams.

Within Lokshala, our learning improvement program which is run at 2 different locations for children from 1st through 7th standard, 180 children are participating.  We do quality education awareness programs, learning workshops, cultural activities, drama, and music.  We also hold PTA meetings so that children’s progress is noted by the parents.

On November 25-26^th our active members had their monthly overnight camp at Shaishav.  Children participated in activities centering around the theme of problem solving.  A teamwork game where everyone was blindfold and instructed to make a shape out rope under the direction of a designated leader built trust and friendship.  Next, the movie Home Alone, where a young boy outsmarts two home intruders was shown to demonstrate how any situation can be dealt with if one is calm and thinks of a planned solution.  Dicussions about the movie revealed how the children felt empowered by the boy taking action rather than letting fear overcome him.  The second day, the children played a game where the objective was to place a pencil into a bottle using string attached the pencil.  With more than 20 children, it wasn’t an easy feat to delicately lead the pencil to the bottle.  Still with each try, the children learned about each other and how to work together to guide a plan to meet a goal.

Moving into December, Shaishav looks forward to hosting several Wenlido training sessions throughout the month.