Apoorva and I volunteer at the Bhowanipore police station Nabadisha centre. We have been conducting sessions around the topics of gender identity, stereotypes, understanding of emotions, story building by showing pictures and story telling with morals.

This activity that was conducted last Friday, helped the children to interact with each other, work together and build a story taking into consideration all aspects of the photograph. It was very important at the beginning of the session to tell the children that there is no right or wrong in the stories they build and they could tell us how they exactly feel seeing the picture. Once they understood this, we noticed that they opened up, showing us their creativity and understanding of each picture.

Picture 1:

In the process of story building, when this picture was shown, the children collectively said that the two men were fighting in the street. They also said that maybe one man stole something from the other or did some unlawful activity due to which people are surrounding them trying to stop the fight.

When we had asked the children what they think the solution should be and if the fight was a good idea or not, all of them said that if the man had committed any unlawful activity, he should apologise and the fight should stop. They should talk to each other instead of hitting each other in public and resolve the matter.

Picture 2: 

The children had different ideas and stories for this picture. Some of them said there was a India-Pakistan match and Pakistan lost due to which they wanted to start a war against Indians. Some of the children said, there was a war near the border, which is why the army is getting ready with their guns to fight with the opponents.

We will conduct a discussion based on this as a follow up in the next class as this a mindset that we feel needs to be addressed.

Picture 3:

The children were initially confused as to what was exactly happening in this picture but after a discussion among themselves they developed a story about how the people were demanding something out of the government, hence they are all standing outside the office while the police is trying to control the crowd. They are all begging for some change in the government while the authority isn’t paying much heed to it and the police is trying to chase them away. There is also the media documenting the entire situation.

Picture 4:

The story building of picture 4 was similar to that of picture 1. In this picture, the children had said that these were a bunch of men working in a corporate office judging from the clothes they were wearing. They had a disagreement about an issue at work and then it escalated and resulted in a violent fight. The children also concluded that in order to resolve the fight, they should talk to each other about the issue instead of fighting with each other. They also said that, if the men had conducted any activity which had resulted in the loss of the company, the individual should apologise for his deed and should be thrown out of the company if its unsolvable and unforgivable.

– Priyanka Chowdhury

Volunteer, Share Stories Open Minds