By Ritu Sharma.
We were apprehensive when we were tasked with holding a session for 9th and 10th standard students of Building Blocks India. The training material was prepared by the experienced faculty members of The Chicago School of Professional Psychology. To make it a bit more aligned with the children’s less privileged background, we tweaked the training material to include activities that they could relate to.
It was on Saturday, 10th June 2023, at 2:30 pm, 15 students entered the classroom, all smiling with curiosity written all over their faces. All the Building Blocks staff were there along with Mr. James Ambat, the founder of Building Blocks India, and Ms. Christina, the social worker. They were equally curious as this training session was going to be the first of a kind that their students were attending.
Malathi, Mili, and Sangavi put the children at ease using icebreaker activity. Though the topic was “heavy” for the children, slowly they started to respond. The discussions centered around the leaders they know in their school, neighborhood, country, and the world. It was followed up with what these leaders do and their leadership styles. When the students were asked what kind of leader they would like to be, they finally started to grasp that they were being trained to be leaders. The team activity to build a paper tower, that Shobha had introduced, turned out to be a big hit with the children as well as the staff. It helped them understand the leadership skills required to do a project.
Then the focus shifted to self-development as a leader. The difficult task of explaining ACT (accept/choose/take action – acceptance and commitment therapy) was accomplished using dance as an activity. This was followed by Lipika explaining the beliefs and values in her easy light-hearted style which was enough to get the message across. The session came to a close, and we knew that a seemingly difficult topic was well accepted, understood, and appreciated.
The children were not done yet! They eagerly showed us how skilled they were in dancing and entertained us with their graceful moves. While we watched them dance with smiles on our faces and a sense of satisfaction, we felt we were watching the future leaders : )
Message from James Ambat “We always have been working on the academic development of our students. But this is a great step forward in their personality development. This is very much needed. All the students and the staff from 7 Bangalore schools participated wholeheartedly.”
