Skills for Life Impact at SSMI- Changing 100 Lives in one year!

We have always believed that good relevant content with fun & innovative delivery is the way to life long learning.. What started as a voluntary weekend experiment is now creating some impact in a span of few months :) .. Impact of 'saturday classes' at SSMI, Delhi in the last one year: Students Speak:

This year we wish to grow :) We hope to impact a 1000 students through skills for life initiative. 

Why can't students decide what to teach?

We had been taking inputs from educators while creating session plans for skills for life initiative. We asked ourselves, why can't students decide what to teach? Thinking on these lines we reached out to a group of students who had recently left school to enter their college life. We felt this may work out really well as these students have recently faced similar challenges that our skills for life audience is currently undergoing.

These students not only suggested what to teach but also gave a very interesting perspective on how to go about it. We came to know that these young talented students are founding members of 'Invictus: The Film & Photography Society' of Sri Guru Gobind Singh College of Commerce, DU. 

They decided that the best way to create an impact on young minds is through the medium of short films. Using their talent, they created the following short film on the theme of 'following your dreams':

A picture is worth a thousand words, and an effective high impact video- maybe a million!

We showed the above film to our students of classes IX and X who found an immediate connect with the thought and were eager to discuss more on the same. Many students personally came after the class and based on the video, they discussed the barriers and paths to following their own passion in life.

We thank Team Invictus for this wonderful work and really look forward to more such high impact short films that will be a great teaching asset for this initiative.

Time for some Nautanki!!

As with all young students, the ones at SSMI also love doing a lot of nautanki in the classroomJ. So we said let’s do it some more!

In classrooms we tend to curb expression in the name of discipline. We wanted these kids to express themselves freely. They initially were of the kind that would get cold shivers while speaking anything in front of the whole class for 10 seconds.

We thus introduced the concept of street play or nukkad natak to them. Soon enough they caught on the concept and started working on key social issues that they think are relevant. For the next 2-3 sessions there was a lot of buzz and activity inside the classroom.

Below are some snippets from one such role play(Kindly ignore the shaky recording and poor video quality):

A lot of what we wanted to teach them through our workshops was all coming into practice with these kids showing a lot of teamwork, generating innovative ideas to deliver a social message, expressing themselves with effective body language, coming out of their shells and doing some active thinking.

It was an absolutely fun and enriching experienceJ!

And when they are eventually ready, we will take them out of their school to interact with a live audience and perform a street play. And I am sure the exposure would help them for a lifetime.

Changes..Small but Significant ones..

Saturday workshops at SSMI have resumed since the school re-opened after the summer break. When we first started interacting with these kids (who have now entered classes 9^th and 10^th this year), it was very clear that were very naive. Even the way they think and react was much below the desired level at their age. Their attention span was all of five to ten minutes and it would be fair to say that it was a daunting challenge holding their attention for long on any topic.

It was seemingly difficult to make them understand the whole purpose of these workshops. They had never attended anything beyond their academic classes. For them Saturday workshops were fun time when they would be made to do numerous activities, watch videos etc. So we let them enjoy.

After some consistent session scheduling with great co-operation from the school authorities, we started noticing some impact of these sessions on the students. Gradually they became conscious that they were learning interesting things about life through these activities, stories and videos. And very soon they became eager participantsJ.

They have started eagerly looking forward to these sessions. Saturday workshop has become an important part of their week. It may be a small but in our opinion a significant impact. They have started expressing themselves more freely, talking about their dreams and fears in life. Even to acknowledge this in front of their entire class took a lot of courage. But these kids have surprised us. (We will keep sharing interesting observations from different sessions in future blog posts)

The very fact that these kids are thinking, expressing and participating is a testimony of the thought that when learning is re-packaged, re-structured and designed to create purposeful impact, education happens.

Young minds are starting to open up. Thoughts are starting to pour out. We hope to give the much needed wings to their thoughts. And soon enough they will make their flightJ. 

Satyamev Jayate | Impact & Taking The Flame Forward

I had heard all kind of cynical stuff about the recent, now slightly fading talk of the town Satyamev Jayate. I always felt from the very beginning that it was a brilliant positive step in the right direction. My belief was further strengthened during the last couple of Skills for Life workshops with class IX and X students at SSMI.

Among a range of activities, we initiated one in which the students had to come up with ideas to bring about a positive change in their school and neighborhood areas. These kids are relatively naïve in all aspects as compared to public school students including general awareness on concerning issues. To my great surprise different groups unanimously came up with ideas around topics such as female foeticide, dowry, drugs & alcohol and showing sensitivity towards that disabled people.

Probing further it became clear that the show left deep impact on these young minds. It’s heartening to see that these kids have been impacted and sensitized about such important issues at a very young age. This would surely leave a lasting effect and bring change in the long run.

To all the critics and cynics, I would humbly say that the onus is now on us to take the flame forward in our own little ways. If the current generation of budding youth in this country, unburdened by the chains of the past, stick to a belief system and certain practices such as not giving/accepting dowry and being sensitive towards many such key issues in the society, change is inevitable.

We at Skills for Life initiative will take our own little measures for ensuring the impact remains. In the coming weeks we are helping these kids enact street plays on these issues in the nearby slum areas.

mere seene mein nahin

toh tere seene mein hee sahi

ho kahin bhi aag lekin 

aag jalni chahiye

What can you do?

Changing lives is exciting :). There is always that one moment of compassion, few words of kindness by a teacher, encouraging talk by a mentor that changes a young life forever.

We have all had such moments in our lives. We hope to create many more such moments in lives of young students. Also sensitize them and prepare them to take on their lives and build something great out of it.

You may join the "Skills for Life" initiative in the following ways:

• Ideas & Content: We have identified key life skills areas that need to be taken up with young teenage students to have a long lasting impact. We need to teach them though stories, simple cases, videos, short films, activities and exercises. We need a lot of out of the box thinking to create all this. Help us by sharing your ideas and building suitable content.
• Implementation: Take some time out on weekdays/weekend and take up a batch of students at SSMI Punjabi Bagh. Create a live impact. What we do at SSMI will serve to build conviction around what we present as a solution to other educators/schools.
• Become an Evangelist: Help us reach out to more schools/educators, introduce our ideology to them. Further we will equip them with guidelines, content and thought process to implement this in their own schools.

Lets change some lives :) Lets create some wonder!

So whats going on?

A song resonates in my head:

Oh Re Taal Mile Nadi Ke Jal Mein

Nadi Mile Saagar Mein
Saagar Mile Kaunse Jal Mein 
Koi Jaane Na...

Things have started coming together for our initiative. 

We have with us an educator who has spent decades into the system but still has a radical thought process and understands system's gaping holes well enough. She will be one of our key mentors for this project. We will also make our first impact in her own school SSMI , an aided school located in Punjabi Bagh. We are already taking workshops with class 8th and 9th student batches of this school (more on this in another blog post). 

We have young professionals who are working in skill building domain and will contribute with their fresh thought and ideas on the experiential exercises, classroom activities on various key life skills that we will bring into the classroom. Through a range of experiential activities, we will ensure that the learning is imbibed.

We have a student group from Delhi University that would make short films and animation videos on the various key life skill themes. Through videos and short films we plan to leave a lasting impact on young minds.

We now have a team of evangelists who will reach out to schools/educators and introduce them to our thought and ideas and will further engage them in later half of this year. We plan to enable them to implement this  in their own schools.

Skills for Life in Simple Steps:

• Build a life skills curriculum
• Create innovative classroom activities, videos, short films
• Implement at SSMI
• Reach out to govt schools/educators and enable them to implement it in their own schools