Category: Home Coming
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To Painting Diyas and Cultivating Friendships
February 26, 2018Last year, Denave India, an organisation based in Greater Noida, presented us with an opportunity to display our work with Arts at a Diwali Exhibition in their offices. For us, it was more than just a presentation. It was a chance to connect and reach out. For this initiative, we organised a ‘Diya-painting workshop’ with citizens of Aradhana Senior Citizen’s home and Bal Shayog, a shelter home for boys, under our newest project ‘Homecoming- Bridging Generations’.
Our effort in this project is to bring together ‘Youth at Risk’ living under ‘Care and Protection’ to inmates in Old Age Homes. This interaction is facilitated through Expressive Arts. Employees from Denave India also volunteered in this workshop and added a lot of enthusiasm and cheer in the atmosphere.
Each piece was a story that we were proud to narrate. Many purchased items for Diwali, while some contributed to the cause. Each act of giving meant a connection with our intent and it is exactly what we’d hoped for. We further displayed our work at Diwali Exhibitions in Vasant Kunj and Teamwork Arts Pvt. Ltd.
We express our heartfelt gratitude to Denave for giving us this opportunity and a big thank you to those who contributed to the cause. The proceeds collected from these exhibitions will go into facilitating more such Expressive Arts Programs.
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Planter up-cycling activity at Aradhana home for senior citizens
February 22, 2018On 5th January 2018, we had our first interaction of the year at Aradhana Senior Citizen Home. After a brief warm up,the children from Bal Sahyog, a shelter home for boys in Connaught Place, ran into the home to meet their ‘Daadis‘. It was as if the entire home came to life as they shouted Happy New Year running around the corridors and peeping into the rooms. Wide smiles spread across the residents’ faces.
We got to work in pairs for the day’s activity, which was to plant saplings in a disposable box and then paint it. They were all excited about the task. The residents held the saplings while the kids put compost into the planters.The elders made sure that the box was cleaned before they started to paint it. They exchanged various options to paint these planters and guided the kids, sometimes indulging them by giving in to their ideas.
The highlight of our workshop was the fact that Mrs Banerjee, one of the senior residents at the home, came down for the first time to participate in the workshop. For the past few workshops, she was interested but watched the activity from her room, a floor above the activity space. This time, the enthusiasm of the kids was such that she came down and wholeheartedly participated in the workshop, paining a planter with her young partner from Bal Sahyog.
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Homecoming- Bridging Generations
November 13, 2017“Dada, please sing for us?” Dada is popular. He changes the mood of the place with his energy sometimes. With insurmountable happiness Dada holds his guitar and starts strumming his favourite tune. The ease with which he can play the chords is delightful. He’s got the energy of a 20 year old because once the guitar is in his hand he doesn’t stop. In his frail yet melodious voice he sings ‘A Summer Holiday’, probably remembering his ‘summer of 69’?
The guitar is a collection of his memories, waiting to be tuned for whoever wants to listen. We are just the audience he needs.
The Homecoming Project is about opening the doors between generations. Many like Dada have a sandook full of unheard, cherished memoirs that they want to share. Each trunk has a lifetime of experience, the feeling of loss, separation, joy, abandonment, withdrawal and a dollop of hope for what lies beyond. Coming “Home”, one expects comfort, non-judgement and an unparalleled lightness not found beyond the homely confines. This project therefore has been launched to recreate that feeling.
As Social Welfare Schemes, Old Age Homes are built to inhabit the elderly who seek to live a dignified life as ‘senior citizens’. Many however, don’t have a say in this regard. They have no option but to find refuge in Old Age Homes. Rehabilitation however is not an easy process. The physiological changes at old age, combined with the emotional and psychological upheaval of leaving one’s ‘Home’ has always presented a challenge to caretakers.
Quite similarly, ‘Children’s Homes’ across the country offer an equal chance of life to ‘at-risk’ children. They provide shelter, nutrition and education to the ones who life on the margins of the socio-economic setup. The importance given to schemes surrounding rehabilitation and integration have received a great deal of attention recently.
The Homecoming Project is a recent addition to the Foundation. With a vision of fostering a relationship between members of different generations, we connect the youth from children’s homes in Delhi with senior citizens residing in Old Age Homes.
Within the chosen populace, there is a genuine need for connection to fill a void created by loss and lack of support. Senior citizens, with their years of experience would become guides and mentors for our young ones. Conversely, we feel that the vibrancy and the youthfulness of the children is a way to bring in joy and cheer into the lives of senior citizens.
Workshops normally take place at the old age home and range from group activities to inter-personal interactions. Sharing of life experiences is crucial, giving each group a chance to understand vulnerabilities and develop a sense of empathy. As the project progresses, we wish to take on artists and volunteers who’d like to engage with the two age groups with this program.
Methodologically, we pair up a senior citizen’s home and a children’s home in an area, conduct positive interventions through Expressive Arts to facilitate an interaction. Our current clusters include:
- Aradhna Senior Citizens Home and Bal Sahyog Children’s Home in Central Delhi
- Sahara Home for Senior Citizens and Arushi Girls Home (A unit of Salaam Balak Trust) in South Delhi
Homecoming is also a pilot format in many ways. Workshop modules have to changed and altered to suit all age groups. We have tried innovative interventions like Pizza Making and Diya Painting, organising participants in groups to help each other out. Singing and dancing have worked great as ice-breakers. Each passing session, more children and senior citizens develop close inter-personal bonds of love and affection. Many children look forward to meeting their ‘grandmothers’ the elderly wait for the ‘bachas’ eagerly.
We’ve just taken baby steps. We hope to expand this project, reaching out to more interested volunteers willing to contribute their time and energy to this project.