SMILE¹ – A programme coordinated by Pravah² in Delhi – a journey where we learn from experiences, the road is a path from self to society, a journey where change is the only constant; change within and without.

Like every other month in SMILE, the month of October was witness to many activities. The first being the Group Exposure – which is one of the core representatives of our faith in experiential learning, followed by workshops that explored the issue of social exclusion and saw the beginning of the SMILE Film Club for this year.

Group Exposure – It’s an opportunity to explore the life of people who are seemingly very different from us – their culture, their traditions, their way of living…everything. At the same time, it gives us the chance to understand the interconnectedness between their lives and ours’. It is a crucial step in breaking our own barriers and stereotypes and venturing out of our comfort zones.

An integral part of this exposure is the orientation camp, which precedes any exploration into a rural setting. This time the camp was held in Faridabad. This camp is important because it prepares us mentally and physically for the challenges that are in store for us in this journey ahead.

After this camp, we had to proceed to Laporiya village in Rajasthan for our actual exposure. However, this was not to be, courtesy agitations in Rajasthan by the ‘Gujjars’. Our venue underwent an unexpected change from a village in Rajasthan to a village in Uttarakhand. Whoops!!! That was a surprise…but we still went ahead with our new plans and finally managed to go to Sri Bhuwaneshwari Mahila Ashram in Anjani Sain, an organisation that works in the area of community development in Uttarakhand.

The journey to Anjani Sain was fun and full of unexpected events and so was the stay. This time the central theme of the exposure was to understand the meaning of the overusedword ‘development’ better. The various kinds of situations we were in, the different activities we participated in and the different phases of life we underwent in a short span of time made us critically analyse our ideas, gain new experiences and then arrive at a new understanding of this concept. We tried to walk towards a more inclusive development where malls gave way to houses for all, multi-specialty hospitals to healthcare for all, latest gadgets to safe and clean drinking water etc.

The visit to the Tehri Dam was the focal point in this shift of perception. On one side we had a huge dam that symbolised India's progress towards becoming a superpower and on the other people who had lost their entire existence as they knew it.

Together we explored, trekked, attended assemblies of the Paryawaran School, which runs on an alternative and holistic education philosophy and participated in many more fun filled activities.

How can we forget the shramdaan, a voluntary service of putting in physical work for someone else. During shramdaan we actually collected huge logs of wood

and got them down the mountains. It did demand a lot of effort from us but also helped us challenge our own limits.

The night-walk back from Chandrabadni Mandir, gazing at the sky full of stars and reaching a hand out to touch them, going to the village to have dinner hosted by different families, those song and dance sequences while cooking lunch and not to forget our very own Khasi Tribal Dance: Oh! I’m overwhelmed by simply amazing memories!

The trip was an enriching experience for all the volunteers and has left an everlasting impression on our minds, a memory that we will cherish all our life.

Voices from Volunteers on their learnings from the Exposure

• Uzma – “Learning was the most important part of the camp because we never wrote or read to learn something but we played games to trust each other, develop our confidence, how to help others and how to make us profit by helping others.”

• Urmi – “Inspiration to do something for others and myself.”

• Arshad – “How to overcome your discomforts and utilising your minimal resources to the maximum.”

• Piyali - “How to resolve conflicts while respecting other people’s views.”

Workshops – In the month of October, we also had two workshops exploring the issue of ‘social exclusion’, trying to understand what it means to different people. While the first day we tried to answer many of these questions, the next day we started with a film called ‘Second hand life’, that explored the problem of e-waste and then a session which was facilitated by Ankit Pogula, a filmmaker and good friend of Pravah, as well as, two of our youth facilitators – Suchismita and Surabhi, who took the discussion onto looking at the problem through a lens of exclusion and its relation to development.

Forthcoming Events

1) Theatre Workshop – A workshop to learn the basics of theatre, understand how

theatre can be used to impact social change and also launch this year’s theatre club. October 30^th to November 1st

2) Monthly Meeting – An opportunity to meet other SMILErs from across colleges. There will be natak, phillum and lots of masti! November 3rd

3) Window to SMILE – Is an opportunity to learn and explore a social issue through hands-on experiences. November 3^rd -4^th residential camp and then again on November 17^th - 18^th

4) Film Screening – Taking the film club forward…further exploring the medium to discuss issues that affect us. November 6^th

5) Citizenship Education Workshop - looks at building skills around conflict resolution, with a focus on team building, communication and leadership. November 26^th-29^th non-residential workshop

To find out more contact the SMILE team at Pravah

(Kanika, Manmeet, Namrata & Neha)

@ 26440619 or 26213918 or 26291354

email us @ smile@younginfluencers.com

OR

Suchismita (LSR College) – 9810835082

Surabhi (Hans Raj College) - 9810431568

Posted in: SMILE October 07- newsletter on Thursday, November 1, 2007 at at 11:03 AM 0 comments