The Jaipur Literature Festival drew renowned authors, poets, screenplay writers & literati from across the globe, onto the sunny lawns of Diggy Palace.

In one of the tented enclosures, a small group of about fifty students assembled to work together not on literary issues, but on issues concerning them, their future.

This was the iPartner Citizenship workshop organized over two days by the Tehelka Foundation, to integrate students from different socio-economic backgrounds and get them to work out a common Vision, a Plan of Action that would involve them all.

The participants were a fine representation of students from urban & rural Jaipur. Students from two NGOs, Digantar and Doosra Dashak, sat side by side with children from private schools, Step by Step High School and the Neeraja Modi School, Jaipur.

Digantar works extensively with the poor Muslim community in Jaipur, focusing on first generation learners amongst the girls. Doosra Dashka works on the education & development of young people between the ages of 11-20 years, and runs residential camps on youth empowerment.

Integrating these youth with the students belonging to an urban, protected environment was bound to yield interesting results!

The workshop began with a small audio-visual of school children sharing their dreams, their role models in life, and what they understood by the term “Citizenship”.

This was a catalyst to kick off a discussion amongst the assembled students about what their aspirations were, and how they felt they could contribute to the country’s development.

It was interesting to see that the less privileged children had dreams that soared as high, if not higher than those of their metro counterparts. They were also willing to work harder to attain their goal, since there would be no helping hand, no “silver spoon” available for them!

The morning sessions were focused on breaking the ice between different groups, encouraging interaction, forming groups, assigning tasks, and learning the principle of living together in harmony.

The afternoons were spent at the Step by Step High School, where the children enjoyed an integrated theatre workshop to further break the ice. The “Name Game” left them enthused and all charged for more physical action!

They then fell into different groups at the Creative Expression workshops – doing paintings, theatre or creative writing. Sitting together, planning and staging impromptu street plays, reading each others’ writing, enabled a bonding between the groups that was heart warming!

As they opened up to one another, the children came out openly against social issues like dowry, child marriage, child labor and education. They shared amongst themselves what the problems were on the ground, what led to child labor and other social evils.

Within the course of the workshop the children prepared plays on dowry, child marriage and child labor, which they staged the next day. They also learned a song on the Right to Information and the transparency being demanded by the villagers, from the students of Doosra Dashak and Digantar.

As the workshop drew to a close, phone numbers were exchanged as the children from Step by Step High School committed to perform a nukkad naatak in February, on the issue of dowry in Bandheli village, where the Digantar girls lived.

A creative expression contest was also held, where the entries were judged in two categories, for the most creative painting and essay. The children were the most appreciative of each other’s work.

The two-day workshops sparked off an interest amongst these children, in the other’s community, so different from the life they had been exposed to till now.

The Tehelka Foundation will work to strengthening this connect and ensuring some tangible results emerge out of it all.