108 under privileged children in Gusbeti, village near Gurgoan attend the Art Excel and YES workshops. These children come from various distressing backgrounds-children of sex workers, alcoholic parents, children of parents testing HIV positive.
These children study in a school run by Deepalaya, a non - government development organization working on issues affecting the urban and rural poor, with a special focus on children. Deepalaya has been working in the urban slums of Delhi and has also made inroads into rural development in the states of Haryana and Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh.
“The workshop gave the resident children and their care givers a learning to understand themselves and their reactions to the stimuli – in their environment, deal with behavioral as well as many other discipline issues.” – Sudha Parthasarthy, Executive Director, Deepalaya
Out of these 108 children, 70 attended the Art Excel Program and 38 did the YES! Course. They showed eagerness to learn, were responsive and enjoyed every moment of the course. They paid attention to all that was taught to them.
“After doing the course, the children who were silent on the first day, showed signs of confidence and were able to come up and share their thoughts on the last day. It helped them to develop a strong bond among themselves and their teachers. Some of them even displayed their talents in singing and dancing during the sessions.” – Hunar Mehra, Art of Living Teacher