Hamari Pahchan
The Internship
Hamari Pahchan is a Delhi based NGO that puts forth a platform to aid the marginalized of our society. Through a 4 week internship in collaboration with the Sukhad foundation, I guided 50+ women and young girls through 4 workshops on “Breaking Barriers and Building Resilience”. Each session was meticulously tailored to meet specific needs of vulnerable women and children in slum areas, and accordingly build the skills to combat it.
In the first session, following introductions and icebreakers to make the participants feel comfortable, I provided a holistic understanding of personal boundaries, followed by interactive activities such as case studies identifying healthy or unhealthy boundaries as well as sharing personal boundaries they have created and wish to further create in their lives. I concluded the session with defining and explaining assertiveness as well as describing assertiveness techniques for boundary setting.
In the second session I emphasized on recognising abusive patterns and dynamics in relationships. This also included apprising them of the types of abuse that could take place. I apprised them of the 4-part cycle of abuse and its specific stages. This was accompanied by disheartening and simultaneously enlightening open discussions on violence and its dehumanization, peer pressure - among both children and spouses - in slum communities and its impact on substance abuse, the role of media and mobile usage as well as boundary violations and unhealthy relationships with neighbours and families in tight-knit rural communities such as theirs.
In the third session, emphasizing the importance of education in bringing about personal change, I apprised the group of the free resources available online to learn to read, write and speak Hindi with a demonstration. This was supplemented by an emphasis on the skill of communication, its types, and the 5 C’s of effective communication. I followed this up with an interactive roleplay activity where two participants at a time were given a situation and had to enact it keeping in mind aspects of effective communication, facial expressions and body language. After a rundown on how to improve communication skills overall, I wrapped up the session with an activity. The group watched a scene from a popular Bollywood movie and in each part, had to identify the effective and ineffective aspects of how they were communicating.
In the final session, with a focus on financial literacy, I discussed banking in terms of the types of accounts available, as well as specific ones for socioeconomically disadvantaged individuals, like zero-balance savings accounts in detail. I explained essential economic concepts like inflation with the help of real-life situations and examples. I followed this with highlighting various government schemes and financial services that aid lower income individuals, as well as similar insurance schemes. We wrapped up the session with a discussion on digital payment and net banking applications, along with a demo on how to use India’s most popular digital payment app - PayTM.
My Learnings
In both preparing and presenting the workshops, I developed a deeper understanding of such social issues. Having to simplify nuanced and complex topics such as domestic violence to young girls as well as highlight the incorrect normalization of abuse and boundary violation in such slum communities helped develop my communication skills, my understanding of sensitive topics and my ability to approach them with empathy and sensitivity. The experience came with having to plan, coordinate and execute these sessions effectively in Hindi. I better understand the importance of support systems in vulnerable populations, and have also gained a new and broader perspective on these challenges in rural backgrounds.
