A creative response to Human Tragedies…

The past months had been quite toxic and the daily newspapers also are carrying news of violations of every kind some of it leave a painful scars on the victims’ families. How do we reframe reality differently so we create a more positive world with love around? The search led us to organize training workshops for children between the age group of 12years to 17 years.

It is the Sunday the 29th of September and kind of Eve of our centenary of the Medical Mission Sisters foundation Day. The CASS office is organizing a workshop for the children of Kasiadih area. The first ones to arrive were the children from Bhadurlatwa. The hall was set with grass mats, a weighing machine to take weights of children and a height meter. The cooks are two youth who are football players they are here to contribute to creating a lunch for their children. The PRAVAH handbook made good resource material for the workshop and the Jan Swasthya Sahoyog training materials from Bilaspur on nutrition were utilized. The two resource persons Regina Tirkey and Sukhdeo arrived.

Web of life giving feedback to the trainers on learnings

The children’s line became long as Chunu Hansda our field Supervisor wrote the names of the children and took their height and weight. It was a solemn occasion a candle was kept in the raised platform for all to see. Gemma Mendes one of the founding members is invited to light the candle. She walks up with an air of dignity and pride the mother who delivered most of them present to life through her selfless service and her profound vision to start an education fund. So far more than 50 nurses and teachers have been educated through her efforts.

The workshop began at 10.30am. The first session was delayed because the resources persons got delayed on the way as their motorbike went repair. There were 40 boys and girls from hamlets Kasiadih, Birakhap, Bhadurlatwa, Neemkocha and Tarwa between the age group of 12years to 17 years. The first session confidence building began with sharing of names and a little bit about family. The second session was on identifying one’s values. The participants were given pieces of paper where each one was asked to write what they like and what they dislike and why. Groups were formed, chart paper was given and the participants shared in the group.

Igniting young minds withHope

After which leaders of each group presented their sharing in the plenary. This session was very much down to earth and the children enjoyed each other’s sharing. The third session was on making a purposeful relationship with one another by sharing each other’s names. A game was organized the participants were asked to stand in a circle and play Ping Pong. When the ball was thrown saying the word Ping the person who got the ball had to share the name of the person on her Right and when Pong was said she had to say the name of the person on her left. If the person took time to share the name or said the wrong name she/he had to go to the center and play the game. The fourth session began after the break with a video on nutrition during adolescence. Emphasis was on nutrition and the food items on one’s plate to resemble the colors on the tricolor flag. The two trainers gave importance to foods needed for energy, for growing and for protection from disease. They were told about the different vitamins needed to be healthy and about how and when to drink water. Once this session was complete a quiz was done to ascertain how much they have learnt. The children found this session very interesting as they had to compete with each other to give the right answers. The final session was on the participants giving feedback to the trainers on their learning’s.

The Learning’s from the Workshop

This Workshop brought in a lot of learning experiences for the trainers and the facilitator team to reflect on, for such interventions in similar spaces , as we started the workshop we realized language would be a barrier , since the participants were more comfortable speaking Santhali. The numbers of boys were less as there was a football match on that day. So we learnt that communication with the youth who work with children regarding setting the date of the workshop and accompanying the children from the village to the workshop center is important for future. We realized in order for the children to recollect their thoughts it was necessary to do regular revision of the sessions that happened this was done as the children were more used to activity based learning. However the sessions were not bereft of activities’ and the participants enjoyed taking part and reflecting on them. What is important is to give the children uncomplicated material for the children to learn from. We were not sufficiently prepared for this during the workshop. Technology did not work well in getting the video viewed well by the participants.