Arts for social change

A teen deals with lots of emotional highs and lows. There can be numerous reasons for this — situations at home, poor grades in school, abuse based on caste and economic status and many others. Most of these issues are seldom discussed in schools or public spaces. Even NGOs fail to address them. Aditi Rao, through her initiative ‘Tasawwur’, is building a space for young minds to come and share their concerns in an artistic way. Aditi says, “At Tasawwur, we believe deeply in the transformative power of imagination through community building exercises. We bring together teenagers from different socio-economic backgrounds to explore and transform some of the most complex social issues they grapple with. We use creative writing and performing arts to support these young people on their explorations and help them discover their unique voice.”

Talking about the need to bring in the arts as a medium for social change, she says, “Topics like social bullying and peer pressure are some important issues to be discussed with kids but most of the time are not addressed at all by elders. Kids lack an authentic space to voice their fears, address their concerns or challenge their received knowledge about the world in which they are growing up. Not only does this lead to an ignorance of others’ experiences and a sense of alienation, but it also prevents them from knowing that they are not alone in their experiences, thereby disempowering them from taking collective action for change.”

An educator and writer, Aditi has worked extensively in the area of youth development and social change in India, Mexico and the USA. She developed a programme wherein she works with a diverse group of teenagers using literary and performing arts as a medium to address important issues for social justice. “The aim is to bring inclusive growth among young minds,” shares Aditi. The intensive 100-hour arts-based creative curriculum explores and addresses complex social norms encountered on a daily basis like sexism, classism, abuse and peer pressure. “Through this process we engage with kids and talk about various social issues that surround them while building healthy cross-cultural relationships across diverse communities and developing the skills to resolve conflicts non-violently. They share their problems and we try to solve them in a creative way,” shares Aditi.

The workshops include theme-based discussions, small group dialogues and a theatre-based activity expressing their most important experiences related to the issue. She says, “As we move through the programme cycle, we focus not just on participants’ existing stories and issues but also on possibilities for re-scripting these stories towards the creation of a more loving, joyful and equitable world. This will be achieved largely through creative processes where participants are pushed to imagine alternatives to the current systems of violence and to articulate their personal steps towards actualising some of those alternatives.” Aditi further adds, “Finally, as important as all these issues are, we believe in achieving sustainable learning through building meaningful relationships amongst the diverse group of participants. Therefore, we set aside several workshop hours on trust building activities aimed at creating lasting, meaningful relationships across different lines of identity, privilege and power.”

Going forward, she wants to connect with like-minded individuals to provide creative independence to teenagers and encourage them to voice their concerns. “Many of the young people in the programme have talked about gender-based violence on the streets in the form of sexual harassment, and in the home in the form of domestic violence. So, I want to reach out to as many organisations and schools and spread awareness about the same,” says Aditi.