Category: What we do
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Youth Outreach Program @ Jaipur Literature Festival
October 17, 2017Pooja came in as a participant from Bassi village representing Doosra Dashak, an NGO working on community upliftment in various ares in Rajasthan. For the first two days, Pooja was a girl with a headscarf who couldn’t even gather the courage to hold the mike. By the time we started performing, Pooja was the star of the show with a monologue of her own. The headscarf had come off and she was a girl brimming with confidence and self-assurance.
For Pooja and her friends, this was the first ever trip to a city. A few days after the festival, Pooja’s father called up our Managing Director Ms. Puneeta Roy, expressing gratitude for his daughter’s transformation.
“Pooja affected me the most for I have noted a drastic change in her in the last few days. When she came on the first day she was so shy that she didn’t even want to give her introduction. But as we proceeded with the activities she started to interact a little. I could actually hear her voice her voice for the first time. On the second day she seemed a little more comfortable. She was making eye contact with people and participating in activities more openly and confidently. When I got a chance to personally talk to her, I found that she was a sweet and ambitious girl who loves her family and wants to help them in any way possible. She feels a little shy talking to boys so I insisted her in doing so, and she agreed. I felt as if I could trust her. Both of us share similar interests and will definitely be in contact after the workshops are over.”
Darshi, Maharaja Sawai Man Singh Vidyalaya, Jaipur (Workshop Participant)
For 10 consecutive years The Yuva Ekta Foundation has conducted ‘Youth Outreach Program’ at Jaipur Literature Festival, the largest free literature festival in the world. Through this program we integrate students from Jaipur schools with participants from NGOs across the country. This diverse groups comes together a week before the festival to explore a socially relevant theme using Theatre. Through this program we have connected with over 10,000 students, teachers, community stakeholders and JLF visitors over the past 10 years.
The idea of the outreach at the Festival is to give back to the city. Workshops usually last for 8-10 sessions divided in two halves each day. We introduce participants to techniques of theatre and expressive arts as they begin the journey of exploring ‘the self’ and ‘self in relation to the other’. Each year we take up a different theme to engage our participants. In our latest edition, we explored ‘Freedom to Dream’ as India approached 70 years of its independence.
These themes are worked upon with creative tools as every participant brings in his/her experiences into these workshops. As the workshops progress, it becomes a mutual learning space where students unite on issues that they see beyond the rural-urban divide.
This module culminates in an ‘Interactive Performance’ that is performed in various schools and community spaces in Jaipur before finding its way to Jaipur Literature Festival Grounds. Our participants realize the importance of their performance once they see students of their age connecting with the scenes on stage.
When we interacted with students from different schools, we realized that many students were able to relate their lives with the scenes of our play and they said that we inspired them. This comment made me understand the power that we, the young generation possess and if we are determined we can definitely change all the ill practices around us and make the world a better place.”- Malya Sharma, Rukmani Birla Modern High School
We have already started preparations for 11th Youth Outreach Program at Jaipur Literature Festival- 2018 with its theme “BREAKTHROUGH – building emotional intelligence through the Arts”. Following our model every year, the seven day workshop will aim at creating a performance based interaction that will be taken to various schools, communities and NGOs in Jaipur.
To know more about our association with the Jaipur Literature Festival, CLICK HERE
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Finding Me
“Being a part of Yuva Ekta was possibly the most defining part of my school days. ‘Finding Me’ was an incredible journey that truly delivered what it promised: me finding myself. The project involved several months of workshops and rehearsal and culminated in a street-play performance in Bluebells School International- my alma mater, and Dilli Haat. It taught me the meaning of social change and how the Arts can be an influential way of making it happen. All that time I spent with the team, having conversations about sensitive issues and laughing about our adolescent joys, changed me for the better. It not only helped me connect to the essence of our mission but also turned me into a more tolerant individual, accepting of the experiences, similarities and differences that make us who we are. I am truly grateful to the Yuva Ekta Foundation for helping me discover a piece of myself that I am now so fond of.”
– Kamakshi Dadhwal is a student of Bluebells School, Delhi who is studying to obtain a Bachelor’s degrees in Psychology (University of Tampa) and Philosophy (University of Oxford). She has been associated with The Foundation for the best part of this decade. She loves to dance and thinks that the only way to truly appreciate cultural diversity is to travel and make friends all over the world. Kamakshi aspires to be a college professor who empowers the youth.
We are young, caught in our dilemmas; navigating through tricky paths only to arrive at crossroads. There’s so much to do, yet we need to make all these choices. At the end of the day, who am I even looking at in the mirror? Who is my true “self”?
A looking glass perspective on today’s youth, ‘Finding Me’ was designed as a series of sketch representations on the issues the young adults face today. Exploring the endless journey- finding our ‘self’, the play explored through everyday scenarios, music and movement the identity crises that young people everywhere face!
With a cast comprising of young people from starkly different backgrounds, most aspects of the play were as reflective and as ‘real’ as they could get. The workshops explored complex and grave issues like drug and alcohol abuse, body image disorders, bullying etc. to understand the identity crisis synonymous with this age group. Workshops urged the participants to journey inward and develop a better understanding of ‘self” in relation to ‘others’.
The musical element was vivaciously strong in the performance. Artists and musicians like Anubhuti Sharma and SCORE (an acapella group of young musicians from Delhi) had partnered with the Foundation for this production. Other aspects of stagecraft including Mime Acting and Physical Theatre were explored with the help of artists like Gilles Chuyen and Dilip Shankar. These tools and more made the workshop experiences a cathartic one for the participants.
The play was performed in Bluebells School International in front of distinguished set of guests and dignitaries from United Kingdom consisting of Minister Fiona Hyslop (Cabinet Secretary for Culture, Tourism and External Affairs and the Scottish National Party), Geoff Pope (Team Leader-Asia Pacific, International Division, Scottish Government), Rob Pyrne (Former Director, British Council India), Dana Macleod (Program Producer, British Council) and Jane Davidson (Director, Outreach and Education, Scottish Opera) among others in the delegation. The audience also included students from various schools and NGOs in Delhi.
The response we received for the performance was amazing. The fact that this play explore journey to discover ‘Self’ made sure it resonated with audience members irrespective of age, class and nationality.
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Theatre Workshops at Bosco Institute, Assam
“My time in Jorhat changed me as a facilitator. It was the first time I stepped out of my comfort zone. I was scared because I was working with students of my age who faced a completely different set of issues. But the workshops helped me grow into a more confident and passionate social worker.”
–Rijul Kataria was a student volunteer and guest facilitator with the Foundation. He currently works as the Research Coordinator with us. To know more about him, click here. <INSERT LINK)
The Foundation was invited by Bosco Institute, Jorhat, Assam to conduct an Expressive Arts workshop as part of the introductory module for M.A (Social Work) students in the Institute in 2013. Two facilitators from the Foundation made the long trip across the country to make this expedition possible.
Bosco Institute’s Masters Program has a phenomenal reputation among the citizens of Assam. Youth from across the North-Eastern States apply, and selections take place only after a rigorous round of interview. This year’s batch was no different. 36 students from different ethnicities, regions and religions had met each other for the first time. Our task was to orient them as critical thinkers and activists who can ‘inspire, innovate and involve’ (Bosco Institute’s Motto).
Only a handful of participants had previously been exposed to any kind of theatre or art. But through the week, each of them had found their own special skill and space in the group. Discussions were of a different nature than in Delhi. Many students came from areas where terrorist insurgencies are an everyday affair and many from communities that have been displaced because of development projects.
These stories came up slowly as more students gained confidence each passing day to express themselves. Our exercises ranged from physical and body work to emotional expression and voice modulation. Each day we would ask our participants to share their stories in the form of a small skit that followed these exercises. Our most challenging task was to translate these experiences for a local audience that understood Assamese and a bit of Hindi. Most of our participants however, new neither.
In an enriching experience, we developed a play called ‘Duniya Gol Banaya’, which represented the ‘ghosts’ of industrialisation, drug and alcohol abuse and corruption that haunt the region. The play was first performed in the Don Bosco school situated beside the institute and then on the streets of Lichubari, the town area. Mythical forces of the local areas combined with real problems, established an instant connect with the audience in the marketplace and the school. Students who’d never been involved with any form of Expressive Arts had come together and performed a play. We also used regional songs and narrative styles to put this piece together.
The facilitators came back with a bagful of memories they cherish even today.
“After watching this play, I realised the power I have to change things. I could have been born anywhere. But as I speak today, I promise to work towards reducing inequality between human beings”
– A student’s response to our performance in Don Bosco School.