We extend a warm welcome to all our parents for 2018-2019 and deep gratitude for the trust reposed in us.
Our two initiatives last year-Sparsh and Kala Samvad were both about conversations that lead us to look within and examine ourselves with respect to our relationships with the self, the other and the world around us.
Through our program Sparsh – stories that live within our bodies, last year we have explored creative therapeutic processes allowing children to communicate and dialogue with the stories around growing up and staying connected with their bodies. The sessions interweaved drawing and painting with body & movement, conversations about body awareness through reading together relevant books, a secret bowl/box to give insight on their thoughts and a safe place for the children to pose their queries, for boys-physical work out to redirect some energy through a routine, for girls-independence in managing their bodies and its functions and developing fine motor and attention skills, ritual and personal story telling to empower the children in achieving simple activities of daily living as well as understand sexuality.
Through Kala Samvad we kept up our endeavour to enhance the relationship within our community of parents. Like every year our aim was to engage with our parents in meaningful ways and initiate creative dialogues thus experiencing and exploring artistic expressions and spaces within and around us. This was the first year where we introduced process work using theatre to our parents through the ‘The Cave Within’ workshop. Kala Samvad has initiated conversations that emanate from and strengthen the community that our children inhabit.
This year, it is time now for a new dialogue to emerge that brings together the intent of both Sparsh as well as Kala Samvad into a common platform. The work of Sparsh that started with the team at Snehadhara as well as the children now leads into The Secret Garden, our program to create a safe space for parents to discuss sexuality and its effect. We believe that this space with the parents will bring together all those working with the child in a guided manner to explore questions around growing up, sexuality and vulnerabilities.
We flag off our first session of The Secret Garden on 31st May 2018
The session will be facilitated by Vikramjeet Sinha of BOAT, a certified theatre and Arts based therapist from the World Centre of Creative Learning, Pune. With over 15 years experience in the field of sexuality training and rehabilitation, he has used creative arts to give skill based training to psychotherapists, caregivers, parents community workers and counsellors who work in rehabilitation spaces.
Intent of the Session
An entire range of emotions erupt as we engage with the concept of sexuality. We treat the word with horror and embarrassment. Therefore, this becomes a taboo and often this taboo gets enacted in many ways with repression, guilt and shame. We look at the world with those lenses and we have our quick judgement and conclusions.When it comes to children and adults with disabilities, sexuality transcends labels and the need to see it, examine it and understand its power with gentleness is required.
Through The Secret Garden, we aspire to reflect creatively on sexuality, power, violence, love, shame and guilt safely, for ourselves and our children.