Jagrik

A life changing interaction.

After undergoing the five-week Jagrik journey, Kehkasha, a Jagrik from The YP Foundation in Delhi has become a community leader in Nizamuddin. She often recalls the game task that changed her life and directed her towards thinking of ways to bring about change in her community. One of the gold tasks of the game was to understand the dream of a differently-abled person. Kehkasha spoke to Yasmin, a young girl who was paralyzed since birth. Yasmin said she wanted to become a teacher despite not ever having gone to school. Amazed at her resilience to do something for society that never gave her an equal chance, Kehkasha said Yasmin and her dream changed her life. After school hours, Kehkasha ensures she does her bit everyday inspiring more and more young people to give back to society. Whether it’s gender equality, prevention of violence or understanding constitutional rights, Kehkasha is leading the way to change.

Raising a voice against child marriage.

Chandni Kumari, another class 9 student from Samastipur, Bihar is the eldest of the seven siblings whose parents had had a child-marriage. Chandni’s task made her meet with at least 3 women or girls who got married before the legal age of 18 years and analyze the reasons and consequences of child marriage. The Jagrik journey instilled self-confidence in Chandni and constitutional literacy gave her a renewed sense of empowerment. As her understanding of the issue of child marriage increased, she decided to voice her concerns to her parents and demand her right to education and say no to child marriage. She further advocated the issue in her community that led to three other child marriages being prevented.  

Three musketeers shining a light on the lack of development in Gujarat.

Vipul, Arvind and Mahesh are class 9 students from Devinagar, Khedbamba and Sabarkantha districts of Gujarat. As part of the Jagrik journey they conducted a survey of 15 households and found out that the area does not have any health, nutrition or early childhood development services. After fruitless meetings with the Area Supervisor and ICDS Block-head, the Jagriks submitted their grievances to the District Collector. As a result, a district-level ICDS team surveyed the area. Although an anganwadi was not established but ensured that balbhog is sent to the community fortnightly and iron and other nutrition supplements are delivered on a weekly basis.  

Power, privilege, and a change in perspective.

Utkarsh and Balram from Indore, Madhya Pradesh, after spending 3-4 hours with a ragpicker and his child, came to know how his day looks like and realized how different it is from their lives. These differences made them curious about the structure of power and made them realize the reality behind the notions that ragpickers have an equal choice as they do. The Jagrik journey taught them empathy, and instilled in them the understanding of how one gets power with certain privileges. 

The importance of a well designed curriculum. 

Jehat from Thissur, Kerala understood the nuances of a well-developed educational program and the challenges in developing it after he undertook a task of designing a 10-hour curriculum of his favourite subject for children from the minority community.