Beginning of many a first
We say that setting up Yellow Rooms is like an Indian marriage – No matter what the circumstances, the Yellow Rooms don’t ever leave the community. And that is why you see magic happening in Yellow Rooms year after year.
When a new Yellow Rooms begins, it marks the beginning of many firsts.
Our freshly appointed Educators have no clue what they are getting into. They think it is teaching children. Right? Children have to be taught Maths and Science and Languages and SEL. Got it! So these children come from very marginalised communities. So?? How does that matter?? How different is it going to be from teaching in schools? And that is where the firsts begin.
Young children at the age of 5-6 abuse openly. For them using maa-behen (mother-sister) abuse is like someone using words like eat and sit. Children of 13-14 years call out female Educators Randi (whore) as they think that gives them the power to make these Educators uncomfortable.
From not brushing teeth or not bathing or older girls not wearing underwears, the first step of changing children begins for the Educators. It is a slow process but a very powerful one.
From not sharing a single pencil or banana or their place to sit on the mat to learning words like share and care and joy from their Yellow Rooms walls is again a slow but very powerful process of change.
From not being able to sit still for 20 minutes to be sitting enthusiastically for 3-4 hours every single day for years and years and years is not a joke. A lot of our children are into some form of labour and for them to be able to take out time every single day and that too 3-4 hours is a very difficult change not just in terms of finances but socially too. From not wearing almost any clothes to coming everyday dressed in bright Yellow T shirts with their hair properly combed and their faces washed is not an easy journey.
I always give the example of putting a nail in the wall. When you are putting a nail on the wall, the hammer hitting the nail has to be done with a lot of care and you have to be at it for sometime. You leave it too soon and the nail will come off, you put too much pressure and the nail will bend. The magic is to keep applying the same amount of light pressure but keep at it until the nail becomes firmly set in the wall and won’t come off so easily.
Yesterday being at one of our newly set Yellow Rooms’ one year celebration brought back all these thoughts. Children love the change, they reset their energies only if they are exposed to all these firsts of love, care and joy!! They love coming to Yellow Rooms, they love their Educators. They are so delighted that they get to write on smart boards and eat yummy bananas. They feel proud to be participating in sessions like Children Panchayat and Padho Padhao. They feel confident that they are learning subjects in a way they have never learnt before. They love drawing and games and yoga and cleanliness sessions. Gender opens a new path for them to know about their rights. But most of all they develop a sense of feeling safe. They want to be in Yellow Rooms because this place makes them happy and they feel belonged and heard. Here they come first, everything else is secondary. Children who never went to school also see a ray of hope that now something will change. They know their future is going to be different. They meet children from older Yellow Rooms and see that similar children are now engineers and nurses and chefs and retail executives and accountants and seem so happy and confident. And this is why we say – Yellow Rooms are magic.
