LIFE SKILLS EDUCATION TOOLKIT FOR ORPHANS AND VULNERABLE CHILDREN IN INDIA• 33
Experience from the field
The Life Skills Education Program began to
create demands on other services in a very
short time. Children talked to other youth
about the sessions on the platforms and in the
streets. As a result, older boys who had
dropped out returned to the sessions. Activities
on self-awareness and relationship building
prompted some children to seek repatriation.
Other children wanted to start non-formal
education so that they could write in the life
skills sessions on their own. More children
now spend time at the center working on
linking learning with life activities rather than
loitering in the streets. Because the children
interact so well in these sessions, there is a
demand from the family life education classes
to use the same approach. In addition, the
program’s meditation exercises were so well
liked that children called up the central office
and demanded yoga classes. (Facilitator,
PCI, Delhi)Developing linkages with other NGOs becomes
necessary as demands grow from the children.
Experience from the field
Older girls can come to the center only if they
bring younger siblings that they have to look
after for their parents. It is distracting, so we
will need to link with Early Childhood
Development services to look after these
children. Older boys want to set goals so
vocational training at the nearby institute will
have to be strengthened. (YWCA, Delhi)SUPPORTING NEW PROGRAMS THAT EMERGE
FROM THE LIFE SKILLS EDUCATION PROGRAM
Because the Life Skills Education Program
empowers and involves children and their
communities, the need for new community or peer-
based initiatives may emerge. The program must be
flexible to respond to these needs.Experience from the field
We have worked for eight years in this
community. It is a violent community of sex
workers, pimps, and bootleggers. There were a
couple of murders recently. With the Life Skills
Education Program and children’s involvement,
there is a greater demand for education and
parents want their children to be included. How
do we accommodate more children?
(Facilitator, SFDRT Pondicherry)
The children were worried that they were not able
to monitor the Linking Learning to Life activities.
They started a Welcome Club and sought our
help. We helped them set it up and were present in
the initial meetings, but now they conduct
sessions on their own. They meet once a week,
generally in the community, at one of the
children’s homes, to review what they did in the
life skills session. They keep minutes and the
officers are rotated periodically. Their agenda has
changed according to their needs. One of the
children reports on national news, another on
international and another on cricket. Other
problems that children have in school are also
discussed. The parents were upset initially because
adolescent boys and girls attended the meetings
(and that too in the evening!). So now, a parent, in
rotation, is invited to attend the sessions.
(Facilitator, Positive Living Project, Namakkal)