Life Skills Education Toolkit

LIFE SKILLS EDUCATION TOOLKIT FOR ORPHANS AND VULNERABLE CHILDREN IN INDIA 5•

Activity: Heroes and Heroines;

Partner: CRS-St. Paul’s Trust,

Andhra Pradesh

Linking Learning With Life

Identify some people in the community or in the family whom the

children can approach in groups of three to ask the following

questions:

• What were their responsibilities when they were young?


• What was expected of them? How did they feel? Looking
  back, would they like to change anything?


• What were the responsibilities of and expectations from
  the opposite sex? Looking back would they change
  anything?


• Do they feel that expectations have changed for young
  people today? Why or why not? What do they feel
  about it?
  The children should preferably work in groups of three. Each
  group can interview three people. One child should ask the
  questions, the other record and the third observe. Each should
  take turns in doing each task so everyone gets a chance to do
  each of the tasks involved in interviewing. The facilitator can be
  in the background in case help is needed.
  The facilitator should approach the people first so that the children get a proper response. A wide
  spectrum of people should be included, such as a teacher, a priest in the temple, a police officer,
  a nurse, a doctor, a petty shop owner, an older boy or girl, a father or a mother.
  This exercise is connected to the next one. Stereotypes are difficult to change; so a series of
  exercises are more likely to have impact than just one.

Experience from the field

Facilitator had to clarify that heroes and heroines were like ideal persons who are not necessarily film

personalities. Until then the children were associating only with film personalities.

There was a lot of discussion so we stopped at point 4 and continued the rest in the next session.

(Positive Living Project, Namakkal)