23 May 2013, Nabadisha Centre, Dhakuria

Today’s hour-long session began with a question—what facilities would you like to have in your dream house? When this question was asked the excitement of  the children knew no bounds. Every single child out of a group of twenty children wanted to answer this question.

After hearing what everyone had to say we decided to conduct a small exercise. We divided the children into four groups and asked each team to choose their team leader. Our instructions were obeyed without any fuss.

Next we explained the rules of the activity. Each group had to make a house and draw the things with which they would like to decorate it. They were given pens, papers and about fifteen minutes to plan out and draw. The answers that we received varied from a teddy bear or an aquarium to the absolutely necessary household articles such as—a fridge, a fan or even a flower vase. One group wanted a chicken pen!

After the four groups had explained what they wanted and why, they submitted their drawings. Then we went into the second and last phase of the game. This was very interesting—all twenty of them had to imagine that they owned a large house in which they all lived together. So this time they had to draw the articles they would want for their community house. The answer to this question resulted in two or four children wanting the same kind of things—a pet, books, a garden so on.

We played this game to promote group work, to make them cooperate with each other, to enhance their skills at strategizing and planning, to inculcate leadership qualities and to encourage them to accommodate each others needs and wants. This small exercise, we hope, would teach the children to live peaceably and understand the concept of living with difference.

Saurya Sengupta and Subhadrika Sen