Music has no language

We have always heard ‘music has no language’ and Jigyasa Labroo managed to experience this magic of music. Jigyasa is Gold Award participant from Ansal Institute of Technology, Gurgaon, and her Residential Project took her to a special school in the beautiful hills of Himachal Pradesh, here is her story:

Harmony Through Education’s mission is to maximize the resources available for residents of underprivileged communities in developing countries, particularly focusing on special needs children and their families. It aims to provide educational opportunities for children who are mentally and/or physically challenged children in rural India. Harmony Through Education implements this mission by funding the creation of projects to establish and operate schools in rural communities run by citizens who are native to the particular country. At present, Harmony Through Education, India Trust runs a school for mentally and physically challenged children in Dharamsala, Himachal Pradesh. 

The school provides year round education for children ranging from ages 6-20 years, charging them a nominal fee between $0 to $20, depending on their financial background. It runs in a seven room building with a kitchen, three class rooms, a store and a playground. The building of the school is on the main road in lower Dharamsala. The reason I chose to work for this organization was because I felt a pressing need to increase my sensitivity for specially abled people, especially children. Also, because I am naturally good with children compared to adults.

At Harmony, as a part of my IAYP (International Award for Young People) Residential Project, I worked as a music instructor and a web developer for the trust for a week's time. The biggest challenge was to teach music to children who could not speak much, hear well or even make eye contact.  This however, made me realize that music was above such considerations and the main purpose of my project should not be to expect them to learn what I was teaching them, but to feel a connection to music.  We did the Hindustani Sargam (Sa re ga ma pa) and some Alankars and the children performed better than I had ever imagined. Out of thirty three, five to six children completely memorized the Sargam and some Alankars and two were even able to sing in perfect harmony. The rest involved themselves by enjoying the music sessions and in a week's time, their teachers reported that their temperaments had become calmer than ever before.

As a computer science student and developer, I created a website and Facebook page for the trust to publicize its activities to garner more donations. 

This one week has probably been the most challenging yet the most gratifying one in my whole life. Not only did I gain new perspectives but also a higher level of sensitivity to people around us. The children gave back to me much more than I could possibly give them. Their ability to be happy and spread joy among people around them, even after being in the circumstances they're in, only motivated me further.  I learnt the virtue of patience and how effective it can be, especially while dealing with special children. They taught me to rise above frustrations, every day they set a new example for me to follow. What greater frustration can there be than that of not being able to communicate. I left the school as a better person, with memories for life and lessons to live that life well.

Project Intervention

Students of St. Mary’s School Safdarjung went for a Residential Project at Azadpura village in Madhya Pradesh. For the students it was nothing close to any other educational project they attended before, they call it the Intervention project. Oxford defines intervention as any interference in the affairs of others, especially by one state in the affairs of another. For the participants intervention here meant taking the beneficiary’s perspective and expectations on the idea of building an educational hub for them.

Here is the experience shared by one of the participant from the Residential Project:

First day of the project was dedicated to acclimatizing ourselves to this new environment, the acclimatization included profiling the community by knowing their culture, their daily routine all this spread across all the age group and for both sex. The motive behind profiling was to weigh the reactions of the locals towards an external entity like us. The results were quite positive as we were able to narrow down to the appropriate locality and timing for setting up our project. As for the perspective of locals towards us was warm and welcoming, this gave us a morale boost and filled us with happiness even before we started the project. 

From the above profiling it was clear that targeting children between 3-5 years and their mothers was of highest priority. 3-5 years because that is the age group where depending on our qualification we would be able to provide them with the basic training such as verbal and motor training. As for their mothers, they were also a point of focus as children learn most from and listen most to their mothers. 

After consistent effort we were able to attract the children to the school, this involved jumping over the psychological walls created by the villagers and making them feel comfortable. At the start we made sure we involved the children in simple recreational activities with prime focus on motor and language skills. There were two important lessons for us to take home, first being, reputation is an important factor when it comes to interventions. Secondly, we also learnt to be sensitive when it comes to interacting with people from different cultures as it took us time to break our barriers of limitation in order to be one of them. Hence from this day onward we decided to devote quality time in reflection, self-introspection and planning for the next day.

With high expectation we started our next day with the aim of bringing in the mothers of 3-5 years children to the school. This turned out to be a much tougher task as the women were not ready to leave their household and delay their daily chores. That is when we realized we let over-confidence cloud our thought process, which is when we decided to get into immediate discussions to solve this problem. In order to tackle this problem we decided to put in extra effort in order to convince the women to leave their houses but this too didn’t help. Once we returned back to the school all battered and drained, not because we were tired but because we didn’t manage to complete day’s objective. To our surprise at the end of the day, 8-10 women did turn up at the school. Thoughts on schooling and its importance were discussed between us and the participating women. 

In spite of all the hurdles that we faced in the day, the major achievement was the active response of women and the confidence they showed to bring more women the next day. We also managed to get volunteers from among them to help us for the next day. It was a day of realization and self-reflection. We understood the importance of planning and that we should not have adopted a laid-back attitude after a minor achievement. Remaining day was spent on preparing for the next day which was the main day of INTERVENTION.

On the D-Day we felt more confident and organized. Firstly, we had our final recreational session which was specifically focusing on children’s cognitive and social development. Meanwhile we were also doing preparing for the upcoming volleyball match. The volleyball match was played between the two teams formed among the villagers of Azadpura. This was not just a mere match for us but the result of three days of our reputation building and execution of initiatives. We finally formed an effective recreational team. This was followed by the reception of women in huge number at the educational hub.  One volunteers supported us a

lot; it was her who made that extra effort to bring 40-45 women to the new school. She proved herself and was very confident & willing. We conducted circle time with them which addressed the need of being

responsible once the children are admitted in school. We also made them self-realize the importance of time by using the medium of role play. It was good to see that it was a two-way communication process as they suggested lot of trainings and courses that can be conducted for them in the school in near future. The thought and significance of ‘empowerment’ was well conveyed. We ended the day by giving recognition to all our volunteers and the teams in the form on certificates, cash prizes and small gifts. We were very glad to see that all our beneficiaries went happy with a promise that they will always support when required. The trust in their eyes was our real achievement. 

IAYP Residential Project 2014 gave us exposure to explore ourselves and to contribute towards a change. It made us more responsible and enlightened us on our role towards the economically disadvantaged. We learnt to work under limitations and deal with different people in difficult circumstances.   

   

Football First "Kickoff to a healthy lifestyle"- Introducing new Award Partners

Today's young people face a challenge of staying physically fit in an era where technology has taken over with Wiis, PlayStations and other virtual games. With the mission to build character and develop skills, by getting young people to be outside, getting dirty (literally) through football training, a team of four leaders comprising of seasoned professionals and footballers conceived FootballFirst.

Their individual, school and league coaching programmes provide young footballers a fun environment to learn important life-skills, improve their skills through intensive coaching and match plays. FootballFirst strongly believes that team sports like football allow young people to learn social skills, deal with challenges, encourages them to take leadership roles within society, are a fun way for them to learn values and lessons of life, and most importantly helo young people to be well-rounded, confident and active individuals. Studies have even shown that participating in team sports improve the learning capabilities and performance of young people in schools in addition to instilling a drive to succeed at all times.

Using the latest international techniques customised to fit Indian needs, their programmes span over 9 months of the year, providing 60 or 90-minute lessons 2-3 times a week. The groups are small to provide individual training and guidance and through a league system, they ensure that every young person gets playtime regardless of their skill-level. FootballFirst are committed to implementing a quality, healthy and pleasurable football programme for all young people through partnerships with schools and other organisation.

The FootballFirst team

• Chetan Mishra- an Economics/Engineering from Georgia Tech (USA), a footballer since a pre-teen and now pursuing International Coaching Course from Liverpool Football Club, England
• Jeyadev Parthasarthy- An entrepreneurial and senior corporate management specialist with over 20 years of experience in design, building and leading complex public and private organizations. Has played football for the Delhi Soccer League, Durand and DCM Cups.
  
• Bikram Singh Thockchom- With over 20 years of experience in Advertising and Sports
  Management, has managed Bhaichung Bhutia (current captain of the Indian football team) while
  working for IMG. As a qualified Youth Football Coach by AIFF (for youth up to 16 years) and India Advisor-Coerver Coaching India, he has has coached over 10,000 school level footballers in India and overseas.
  

- Information has been taken from the FootballFirst Booklet