Event date: 15th March 2024
Location: Chetana college, Bandra
With love and respect I accepted an
invitation from Sachita, an old and close friend, to do an Arts Based Therapy (ABT) session in Chetana College. She has been working there as a professor since 9 years and has been inviting me for this session for the last 5 years but I haven’t managed to take any session because of various reasons. However, at Seedling Foundation, we believe in supporting other people’s causes and contributing to society in multiple forms, while also collaborating and creating new meaningful connections. Knowing this, I discussed this opportunity with Karan and soon we mutually decided to go ahead with it.
It was a two day workshop and Sachita decided to take the session on Day 1 and we were supposed to take the session on the second day, for about 2 hours. Sachita wanted to have a theme that touches 2 aspects – the self and society, however, the overall theme was not fixed yet. Sachita decided to take her session on purely arts based therapy and focus on the self part. For our session, we initially planned to work on the theme “Relationships” and we had made a plan which included arts as well as a discussion on relationship with our own self and society. However, after getting some information about the group we had come to the conclusion that we had an opportunity to sow seeds of service through the given overarching topic of ‘relationship with society’. So we prepared our session around the theme “Relationships and Service”. The students were all first year college students in various finance related courses. We designed the session to include a team activity, discussion on a few videos and some reflection through art.
Funnily, when we entered the college, we were given the designation of ‘Guest Faculty’ and this was quite awkward for Karan and me, both! Sachita and I welcomed the students with beautiful heart pins, made by kids in the slums of Ahmedabad. The classroom’s center was decorated with flowers and all the chairs were set up in a half circle. Everyone settled down. To make these arrangements one of the boys from the participants itself helped a lot. Later we got to know that he is actively participating in college events as a volunteer. Sachita introduced us to the group and then we asked all of them to share their takeaways from the last session conducted by Sachita. We got insightful answers from the participants and it also broke the ice well.
After the introduction we wanted the participants to get a little charged up and use their problem-solving muscles, so we started with the Traffic Jam game. We made two groups of 6 people each. After the initial attempt, we showed them the solution once. After that, one group, which was relatively sharp, was able to solve it in the predetermined time and then they also helped the other group. Looking at their sharpness and enthusiasm we challenged them saying “those of you who feel confident that you have understood the method please come ahead” and we gave them the 8 person version of the Traffic Jam game. The boy who helped setup and two other girls confidently came ahead and did it very well. This gave the motivation to the whole circle and then we steered into the main topic.
Karan showed three videos of Simon Sinek – an English-American author and inspirational speaker. The videos were based on teamwork, empathy, and comparing ourselves with others. After listening to these videos we went on discussion mode. The students shared how they related to some of the things shared in the videos and how some of the aspects were different from what the normal narrative in college was, especially in the finance department. They acknowledged that they do compare themselves with others and feel jealous or low but they also understood that everyone has different qualities. After this discussion Karan showed Nipun Mehta’s TED talk of Unlocking Multiple Forms of Capital. Nipun Mehta is the founder of ServiceSpace, an incubator of gift economy projects that inspires people to be the change they wish to see. Before showing the video, Karan asked them what came to their mind when they heard the word “Capital” or “Wealth”? All of them simply said money. After watching the video the discussion on this video really took the participants in different zones which broke the idea that only ‘money’ capital can help to improve society’s situations. Nature, knowledge, technology, culture and compassion, are some other forms of capital which every person can tap into to serve society.
After the discussion, we moved to the self reflection activity through art. We asked the participants to think of which capital they resonate with and would like to use to serve society and 1 tangible idea that they can actually execute. Everyone was provided with art material; they could draw, write or express in whatever way they wanted to. After ten minutes we again discussed our ideas. One by one they started sharing. One girl said, “I want to start a library in various areas for all people. I love reading books and I feel knowledge is a big capital. I have already started taking some steps towards my goal, like going to a nearby NGO to help them.” A girl who was in her shell for almost the entire session, shared that she will sit under a tree to connect with nature. Another girl who was actively sharing throughout the session said, “listening to someone is also important. Friendship and support can be my capital.” One shared that “teaching others can be my capital and I want to gain knowledge to help myself and others.” One of the participants gave an unexpected answer; she said, “None of them, I feel how I am is fine.” Another said, “kindness will be my capital”. 
All the participants came up with many ideas and were able to understand that ‘Service is not any kind of charity, but it’s our responsibility. Each one of us can contribute to society in different ways with various forms of capital.’ And as Martin Luther King said, “Everybody can be great…because everybody can serve.” One by one, they wrote ‘their capital’ on the white board and right there we saw multiple forms of wealth! 😀
At the end, I felt we got this opportunity to collectively explore the definition of ‘service’ with a small group of youth. This is an important age group where we can sow the seeds of compassion. When the participants got to know that the beautiful ‘Heart Pins’ that they had been welcomed with were made by kids from slums in Ahmedabad, their eyes got watery. Karan told them that they can pass the heart pins forward by tagging them to others. After the group photo, Karan shared the kindness deck cards where different kindness activities were suggested on each card. They loved these small gifts and they took more than one card each. It was a wonderful moment to see one seed create many seeds of love. I hope these people will continue to grow in compassion and serve the world in their own unique ways!
I feel one person is also a big NGO. If a human being is able to handle their own self with compassion then he/she automatically serves the surrounding by not harming others. As compassionate service soldiers we will always be ready for such opportunities to share, to dare and to love.
