In 2010, they set up the After School Life Skills, Career Connect and Teacher Development Program in Bangalore and have trained around more than 10,000 educators impacting over 200,000 children. The After School Life Skills Program is leaving no stone unturned in developing life skills of the youth by leveraging sports and arts as a medium of learning, thereby, making learning more experiential.
20 years ago, 11 persons came together with just an idea to volunteer their time to engage children who were terminally-ill, abandoned and HIV-infected with games and activities that could help them feel joy and hope again. The idea was to bring together children who needed support, with people who could care and could create meaningful engagement. However, when they worked with young people from vulnerable backgrounds who experienced extreme adversity in their daily lives, they realized that merely engaging with children was not enough, especially when the intent was to help them leapfrog into an unpredictable and complex future successfully. Dream a Dream believed that the life skills interventions could become a critical ingredient to help young people navigate challenges arising out of adversity and build their ability to thrive. Started as a volunteer effort to spend their weekends meaningfully, it has today turned into an organization that is considered a pioneer in the life-skills space in India.
At the center of Dream a Dream’s approach is the young person who has the potential to overcome adversity and thrive in an unpredictable world by developing life skills. Next are their closest influencers – their parents followed closely by teachers. And then is the education ecosystem around the child. Starting with direct interventions of life-skills programs in Bangalore, where more than 200,000 children were impacted, the most notable achievement has been with the Delhi Government to implement the ‘Happiness Curriculum’ across the public schools of Delhi. An impact study done by Brookings Institute, USA showed better relationships with teachers, increased participation in classes and increased focus and mindfulness among students. Since then, Dream a Dream has worked with 4 other state departments to implement life-skills based curriculum for students in government schools impacting over 3 million children
One of the biggest challenges faced early on by Dream a Dream was quantifiable assessment of life-skills programs. The team looked at global standardized scales around the world which either only measured specific life skills or were not contextual to disadvantaged communities. Dream a Dream explored the idea of developing an assessment scale of its own, and with the help of two UK based Clinical Psychologists – Dr. Fiona Kennedy and Dr. David Pearson built the Life Skills Assessment Scale (LSAS): Measuring Life Skills in Disadvantaged Children in the Developing World. After 8 years of effort, the scale was published in the international journal of Social Behavior and Personality in 2014. The LSAS has been downloaded over 6000 times by researchers across the world and in 2018, was selected by HundrED as one of the most innovative, impactful, and scalable solutions in K-12 education globally.
In 2010, they set up the After School Life Skills, Career Connect and Teacher Development Program in Bangalore and have trained around more than 10,000 educators impacting over 200,000 children. The After School Life Skills Program is leaving no stone unturned in developing life skills of the youth by leveraging sports and arts as a medium of learning, thereby, making learning more experiential. The Career Connect program, uses its signature Life Skills Approach to conduct career awareness workshops, run short-term modules in English, communication skills, money management, and career guidance helping youth make meaningful transitions to work and life as adults. The Teacher Development program’ engages adults to deepen impact on and unlock potential of young people. The teachers and facilitators are trained to nurture empathy, expand their creativity, develop listening and validation skills and understand the role of a facilitator.
The organization has seen its efforts fructify with the systemic investment in Life Skills across the education ecosystem especially in public schools across the country. As mentioned earlier, it collaborated with the Delhi Government to introduce the Happiness Curriculum in 2018 and also witnessed other state governments recognize the importance of integrating Life Skills based pedagogies within the school curriculum. Soon, a surge in schools were reaching out to Dream a Dream to build the capacity of teachers on the Life Skills Approach and add to the contribution to new research coming out of the global south on the impact of Social Emotional Learning (SEL) and Life Skills based interventions.
Over the last 20 years, Dream a Dream has realized that there needs to be widespread buy-in among government stakeholders for the purpose of education to shift towards thriving of children. Since then, Dream a Dream has had over 240 employees who have been a part of Dream a Dream’s team, have engaged over 10,000 volunteers and a host of advisors, mentors, board members, donors and consultants and impacted the lives of over 3 million children and young people. But most importantly, the organization has continued to be an advocate for young people and today stand proudly beside them as they show the way forward.
Laurels aplenty has come Dream a Dream’s way with the organization being recognized amongst 10 Champions in the world that are “Re-imagine Learning through Play” by Ashoka and Lego Foundation in 2015. Dream a Dream is now a Certified as a Great Place To Work (2021-2022) along with being the 3-time regional finalist of the India NGO of the Year Award, runner-up at the GDN Most Innovative Project Award and winning the 2020 Football for Good award by Common Goal. Today Dream a Dream is building a world where all children can thrive within the existing education systems by reframing the purpose of education and the definition of success and doing this through redesigning curriculum, pedagogy, training and assessments. It is working to bring together systemic players in the education ecosystem to shift the narrative towards thriving as the purpose of education.
Dream a Dream, under inspired leadership of Suchetha Bhatt has proved that life-skills approach to learning has the capacity to transform school education. They could make it happen and demonstrated that such models can also be scaled.