This document discusses how non-profits in India are providing underprivileged children opportunities to explore talents in music, dance, drama, art, and sports. It profiles several success stories of children from slums who found pathways to careers through these programs, including a choreographer who joined a dance institute after overcoming hardships, and a football player from a fishing slum who pursued his passion for the sport. The document advocates for expanding access to such extracurricular activities as a way to educate and prepare marginalized youth.

1. S U N DAY H I N D U STA N T I M E S , M U M B A I
O C TO B E R 3 0 , 2 0 1 1 | 09
think! VARIETY
STORIES ABOUT A CHANGING INDIA
PHOTOS COURTESY: ACORN FOUNDATIO N INDIA & BLUE FROG
FROM SLUM KIDS TO
■ Acorn Foundation India conducts
music and theatre workshops for slum
Humaira Ansari children as part of The Dharavi
ROCK STARS
■ humaira.ansari@hindustantimes.com Project. Two groups have even
S
performed at Blue Frog.
ilence,” shouts buck-toothed
Abdul Sheikh, 10, grinn-
ing. “ Chup rahoge tab toh
bajaega (Only if you’re quiet Just back
from playing
can I play).”
The crowd at performance club Blue
Frog is cheering for an encore from
football,
Abdul and 20 other Dharavi slum chil-
dren, most of them ragpickers. The
group is performing alongside popstar
Suneeta Rao, singing, dancing or play-
ing percussion on plastic buckets.
Part of The Dharavi Project, this gig OPENING DOORS The Dharavi Project, which recently showcased talent in France
was organised in late August by Acorn
Foundation India, a six-year-old organ- from the slums, is just the latest in a slew of NGO programmes promoting SHAKTI
isation working to expose marginalised
children to music and drama. sport, art, music and dancing as possible careers for underprivileged children JAGANNATHAN,
“Jazz emerged from the cotton 20, FOOTBALL PLAYER
fields; hip-hop and reggae from the
S
ghettoes,” says Vinod Shetty, director hakti Jagannathan grew up in north
successstories
of Acorn Foundation. “Who knows? props and costumes, another group of Chennai’s Vyasarpadi slum, where
Our children may come up with a new 14 children also scripted, produced she got her first job at age 10, sort-
genre altogether.” and enacted a play about slum chil- ing and cleaning raw fish for an export
From Kamathipura to Shiamak’s institute
It’s a new approach to educating dren at Matunga’s Mysore auditorium company, in exchange for Rs 15 per day.
underprivileged children and prepar- in September. “I remember I always had cuts on
ing them for a career. Across the city, Elsewhere, Akanksha, an NGO that my hands from the scales and bones,”
over the past decade, NGOs have gone started with English and math classes ANSHUMAN POYREKAR/HT she says.
from teaching English and math to for slum children in Colaba in 1990, Khetwadi centre. But as she ripped fish eyes from their
imparting non-traditional skills in began offering weekend arts classes in SAHIL, 22, CHOREOGRAPHER But this too was a struggle. From sockets and cleared out entrails, she
fields such as dance, drama, art, music 1995 and, since 2003, has been offering 2005 to 2008, after his mother died, kept her mind on football. “It was the
A
and sport. hockey and football too, via 36 centres s a child, Sahil (name changed) Sahil worked at a phone booth and then PHOTO COURTESY: CRY
across the city, most of them in munic- spent most of the day alone in a a courier company to support himself.
ipal schools. tiny hovel in Kamathipura as his “Every time I passed Shiamak
Slum children often do not have “Cricket is on the cards next,” says mother scrubbed floors to try and earn Davar’s Nana Chowk centre, my feet
role models within the family. Thus, director Suparna Mody. a living. At night, she would drop him would just start to move,” he says.
There are currently 200 children in off at a shelter run by NGO Prerana In January 2008, Prerana offered
classes in performing arts and other the Akanksha sports programme. And and head out to the streets, as a com- him an administrative job at a month-
non-conventional fields help them 6,000 have participated in the Arts for mercial sex worker. ly salary of Rs 3,500 and he joined an
Akanksha project since 1995, with their At age five, when he began asking advanced dance group where teenagers
connect interests and careers. cards, calendars and mugs sold online questions about his mother’s work, Sahil from various NGOs were taught free
PARVEEN SHAIKH, career counsellor and at the new standalone store was sent to a government boarding by instructors from VAF.
launched in Worli last November. school in Pune where he spent 10 years ■ Sahil teaches dance to slum kids Earlier this year, Sahil received an
Many of these courses began as Meanwhile, NGO Child Rights and in a 500-sq-ft room that he shared with through Victory Arts Foundation. offer letter from VAF. He now earns an
stress-busting techniques, giving the You (CRY), founded in 1979, has been 14 other children. “We shared a bath- additional Rs 3,200 every month teach-
children a way to get together and offering courses in street theatre since room too, and took turns to clean it,” Sahil signed up and realised that he ing at eight dance classes in municipal ■ Shakti Jagannathan has played at the
blow off steam, and keeping them off 1997 and introduced sports coaching he says. loved the balance, skill and beauty of schools across the city. district, state and national levels.
the streets and out of trouble in non- as part of its educational initiatives in Ten years later, in 2003, he returned choreography. “My new job means I am inching clos-
school hours. Now, as the job market 2006, in association with the Chennai- to Mumbai, enrolled at Wilson College, Now 22, he is a dance instructor er to my ultimate goal of becoming a only thing I looked forward to in my
opens up, these alternative skills have based Slum Children Sports Talent and decided to reconnect with Prerana. with Shiamak Davar’s Victory Arts full-time choreographer,” says Sahil. day,” she says. “I would hurry home,
turned into careers for some of these Education Development Society The NGO had just introduced a one- Foundation (VAF) and holds an “This thought keeps me happy and wash up quickly and then run back to
children, introducing them to worlds (SCSTEDS). hour morning dance class. Intrigued, administrative job at Prerana’s keeps me going.” school to join my team.”
that would otherwise have been inac- A total of 5,000 children across Now 20, Jagannathan has played 25
cessible to them. Chennai have enrolled in SCSTEDS KALPAK PATHAK/HT PHOTO matches at the district, state and nation-
“Slum children often do not have any
role models within the family. When
they think ‘career’, they think of open-
ing a pav bhaji stall,” says career coun-
since its inception in 2000, learning
sports such as football, chess, carom
and athletics.
About 500 of them are now com-
Making a living from art al levels. In August, she even played a
tournament in France, spending 10 days
there. “The plane was so fancy, the roads
and football fields in France so smooth,”
sellor Parveen Shaikh, who works with peting at various levels. Among these SIRAJUL JALIL KHAN, 21, GRAPHIC DESIGNER she says, grinning.
students across 20 BMC schools in is Chennai-based Shakti Jagannathan, It all started when a local NGO, Slum
Mumbai. “Thus, when they are intro- a slumdweller and child labourer intro- Children Sports Talent Education
W
duced to performing arts and other duced to football by the NGO in 2005. hen Sirajul Jalil dent and a part-time Development Society (SCSTEDS),
non-conventional fields, it helps them Now 20, Jagannathan has played at the Khan’s father graphic designer. began organising football matches at
connect interests and careers.” district, state and national levels, signed him up In April 2010, he co- her school in the evenings.
Acorn Foundation India, for instance, recently returned from a tournament with NGO Akanksha in designed with his ■ Sirajul Khan works at a publishing “It looked like fun, so I asked if I could
was started in 2005 to train ragpick- in France and is pursuing a career in 1996, this Mahalaxmi Akanksha art teacher the firm and co-designed the cover of a join,” says Shakti. For two years, she
ers in Dharavi to segregate and recy- the sport. slumdweller decided to cover of children’s book children’s book (left) last year. played almost every day.
cle waste. Six months ago, its Dharavi “When someone like Shakti grows attend all the after-school Miss Muglee Goes to Then, after Class 10, she quit her job
Project was expanded to include music up to become whoever she wants to classes — English, math Mumbai, work that says. “I felt like a star.” and enrolled in college, where she has
and theatre workshops. be, that is the best possible motivat- and value education. earned him a graphic Now, Khan’s long-term goals include spent the past four years studying bio-
Scores of kids have participated in ing factor for other children living in “But from the first week- design internship at the pub- buying a house for his family and a zoology and playing football.
these weekly workshops and two situations of extreme vulnerability as end art class, I knew that art and design lishing firm, Vakils, Feffer & Simons. motorcycle for himself. “I plan to keep playing,” says Shakti.
groups of about 20 each have per- well as their families,” says CRY CEO was what I wanted to do,” he says. Now “I felt such a rush while posing for “I am happy,” he says. “I know where “My dream is to some day play for the
formed at Blue Frog. Using recycled Pooja Marwaha. 21, Khan is a third-year commerce stu- photographs at the book release,” he I am headed.” Indian team.”
ILLUSTRATION: SHRIKRISHNA PATKAR
Two women retell the Ramayana, through Sita’s eyes
FEMINIST VOICE Even as Delhi University drops AK Ramanujan’s essay on the epic from its syllabus, another interpretation makes waves overseas
Radhika Raj ry and does not glorify Rama as a brave launched on July 30 and made its AK-47s followed the children around. seven languages and won awards in
■ radhika.raj@hindustantimes.com warrior king but speaks of Sita’s oppres- way to the New York Times bestseller “Kalashnikov was already a part of Germany, Italy and Spain.
M
sion as a banished, humiliated queen, list on October 16 in the Hardcover my vocabulary,” Arni says. The same tone — a female perspective
oyna Chitrakar, 38, grew and of the quiet strength of a single Graphic Books category, based on its Amid kidnappings and embassy of the futility of war — now comple-
up hearing her neighbours mother,” says Chitrakar. “It is a retelling sales in the US. bombings, she says she learnt early ments Bangalore-based Chitrakar’s
scream and sob in their that the women of Nirbhoypur can The sleek, fast-paced book begins that there are no winners in war. visual narrative in Sita’s Ramayana.
mud homes as their hus- relate to, so we have passed it on it to just after Rama’s triumphant return With playtime guarded, Arni spent Rama’s victory in Lanka, for instance,
bands returned home our daughters and our sisters through from Lanka. But rather than telling of hours in the embassy library, reading is not celebrated. Instead, Sita says:
drunk, angry and abusive. the generations.” the celebrations, it follows Sita as she and rereading the Indian epics “I heard the women of the palace,
The girls in her Nirbhoypur village In 2000, Chitrakar and her husband, walks away from Ayodhya, alone, preg- Ramayana and Mahabharata. shrieking, I saw Ravana’s queens run-
in West Bengal were always the first a Patua artist too, decided to spread nant, banished into the forest by her At age eight, a year before the Babri ning to the battlefield, tears stream-
to drop out of school when finances the story in neighbouring villages with doubting husband. Masjid demolition and subsequent ing down their faces. Their screams
became scarce; most were married by a performance of traditional songs The strong female voice, however, communal riots, Arni returned to India rent the air. Even I, enclosed in this
age 15. Chitrakar, who grew up in a about the banished queen, accompa- is not Chitrakar’s alone. A year into with her family and says she saw the garden, could hear their grief.”
mud home, one of five children of impov- nied by an exhibition of paintings depict- the two-year project, Tara invited story of the Mahabharata mirrored in War, in some ways, is merciful to
erished traditional Patua artists, was ing her struggle. author Samhita Arni, 27, to frame the the hostility between India and Pakistan. men, Sita adds later. “It makes them
married at 14 and dropped out of school Nine years on, Tara Books, an inde- text for the graphic novel. “These two countries, like the Kauravas heroes if they are the victors. If they
after Class 5. pendent publishing house based in Like Chitrakar, Arni’s work was also and Pandavas, were brothers, divided, are vanquished — they do not live to
But through those years, she found Chennai that scours villages across India deeply influenced by her childhood fighting over territory,” she says. see their homes taken, their wives wid-
hope and inspiration in a story her grand- for traditional artists, invited Patua experience of hostility and violence. So, at age nine, she sketched her owed. But if you are a woman — you
mother would tell her as she painted artists from Nirbhoypur village to Chennai The daughter of an Indian diplomat, own line drawings and wrote her own must live through defeat...” ■ Author Samhita Arni, publisher Gita
Patua scrolls — the story of the grand and were told of Chitrakar’s work. Arni moved to Karachi, Pakistan, with retelling of that epic. Released by Tara (Sita’s Ramayana [151 Pages, Wolf and tribal Patua artist Moyna
epic Ramayana, through Sita’s eyes. Tara invited her to create a graph- her family at age four. School was a as Mahabharatha — A Child’s View, Rs 550] is available on Chitrakar at the launch of Sita’s
“The story is part of our oral histo- ic novel — Sita’s Ramayan — that was gated complex where bodyguards with in 1999, the book was translated into tarabooks.com and flipkart.com) Ramayana in Chennai in July.