In May 2018, the Yuva Ekta Foundation began its unique journey with a Research Project titled ‘Building Emotional Intelligence using Expressive Arts and Psychodrama Therapy with Children in Conflict with Law (CICL)’. The very first of its kind in India, this study pioneers the cause of the Arts in the social sector, particularly within Juvenile Prison settings. We have tied up with leading Psychologists, Psychodramatist and several other Master Practitioners to create an intensive and wholesome program that works on building competencies among young adults living in Adharshila Special Home for Boys and Place of Safety, Majnu ka Tila, Delhi.

51 Expressive Arts Therapy workshops and 10 Psychodrama workshops, spanning over a period of 10 months, were carefully planned to affect desired indicators of Emotional Intelligence like compassion, empathy, self-awareness, conflict management and other psychological variables mentioned by experts in the field. Our team included 3 Expressive Arts facilitators headed by Ms. Puneeta Roy, Ms. Magdalene Jeyarathnam, our lead Psychodramatist from Indian Institute of Psychodrama and Ms. Vasvi Srivastava, co-principal investigator of the study.

Our guest facilitators included Mr. Dilip Shankar, Ms. Tripura Kashyap, Ms. Bulbul Sharma, Mr. Shivalik Raj, and Mr. Varun Narain, who introduced our participants to a whole new world of theatre, creative dance-movement, painting, martial-arts and puppetry respectively. Our idea is to expose young adults in this facility to a new emotional and cultural paradigm that helps them negotiate differently with their surroundings.

Through the course of these workshops, our participants went through their own significant journeys. They developed a number of art-pieces and performances that reflected their dreams, aspirations, emotions and inner turmoil. To celebrate our journey and share the progress the participants had made, we celebrated ‘Open Day’ in the home. We have celebrated two Open-days till now, the first on 21^st December, 2018 and the second on 12^th April, 2019. Our guests included Magistrates, lawyers, key stakeholders, child-right activists and the families of the boys. In the second edition of the open-day, the boys designed a biosphere with puppets and up-cycled waste material that took the visitors through a magical world full of surprises. The workshop space was transformed into ‘Bhavno Ki Duniya’ (World of Emotions), where the boys gave the visitors a walking tour of the world inside.

We endeavor to empower these young adults using a variety of Expressive Arts’ tools. Empowerment holds a different meaning for everyone, and we define our own parameters in this journey. But we do hope that our participants can re-integrate back into society as stronger, more resilient individuals, better equipped to negotiate with the world around them.