October Visits- Abhyudhya

October visits!

Four visits of October were planned on similar lines. It was a mix of confidence building through a movie, a confidence building exercise, a little bit of math and IQ challenge and ethnography study.

With Prachi and her mother

·        Bhaag Milkha Bhaag- This movie was covered in four sessions because the length was little huge. This movie was chosen because it deals with issues like hard work, perseverance, working in competition and making hard choices. The session used to start with half an hour or 45 minutes of movie and then around ten minutes of talk regarding what she understood and how we should make decisions. She would generally start by telling what she learnt. After that, I would ask her questions related to her real life and ask her how she had implanted this in her real life. I would also give her some situations and ask how she would react or deal these situations. All the four visits were done in this manner only.

·        Three Person activity- Prachi is still following the three persons activity where she has to ask three people daily some random questions. After discussing with her about this exercise, she admitted that now she feels a little less shy. She feels conscious when she has to approach people and ask random questions. But the regular exercise has made her a little more comfortable in this situation.

·        IQ building up- This was a new activity taken up by both of us. I started bringing maths challenges and sudoku games which we used to do separately. She was very happy while doing Sudoku because that was something she didn’t know and it was fun for her. We did this in all four sessions and enjoyed it.

·        Ethnography visit- In the last session, we devoted half an hour for ethnography project. Fortunately, her parents and her sister was also parents. I sat with all of them and asked various questions. Particularly, I asked her father all about investments, trade, business nearby, savings et al. To her mother I asked about what are generally the profession of ladies in her area and any problems of gender diversity. With Prachi and her sister, I talked more about demography, education, gender problems, and caste problems, about their schools, tuition and college. Health issues were also discussed and we went to a local clinic as well. On our way, we saw local shopkeepers and discussed more about their hygiene and shopping habits. We discussed about the large dump that is lying outside their chawl. About the problems they faced due to this.

Dustbins right outside chawl!

Entrance of chawl