Bridging the generation gap

With an aim to bridge the generation gap and break the communication barriers between parents and their children, two Coimbatore-based women are planning to start a service oriented, non-profit organisation — Aganya. One of the founders, Sri Prashanthi Venugopal, opens up about the reason behind starting the venture.

“In the past three to five years, we have witnessed drastic changes in various spheres —  transformation of the education system, availability of new job opportunities, digitalisation and the emergence of innovative and alternative career paths. These changes have caused most parents to lose touch with their children, and hence are unable to relate to their thought processes, leading to a huge communication gap,” she starts. The other founder is Sadhana Balaji.

Aganya has derived its concept from the US-based organisation ‘Big Brothers, Big Sisters of America’. “They offer one-to-one mentoring for youngsters aged between six and 18 with the help of adult volunteer mentors. Rather than mentoring children, we decided to mentor parents, especially mothers, because they play a prominent role in a child’s upbringing,” she adds.

According to clinical psychologists, one of the major causes of depression in children is the communication gap with parents. “That’s where Aganya comes in. Through mentoring mothers, we help them in understanding their children better, in putting themselves in their children’s shoes, and in handling them more effectively. We break the communication barriers between mothers and their childrens, by doubling up as a third-person as well as an older sibling,” Prashanthi adds.

With the help of MSW (Master of Social Work) students as mentors, and psychology students as consultants, Aganya will conduct a mentorship programme for the mothers of 14 to 21-year-old children. She elaborates, “We will be bringing MSW students to intern with us for five months. This five-month long programme involves a month of training the mentors, a month of bonding between the mentors and the mothers, and a three-month full-fledged mentoring process. The mentoring process includes one-on-one mentoring of mothers by their respective mentors, involving a set of intensive motivational sessions, parenting activities, and self-development workshops.”

In short, Aganya is the need of the hour for mothers who want to become a part of their children’s lives again, Prashanthi mentions. Not only mothers, the mentors, too,  benefit from this programme — “This will equip mentors with strong interpersonal communication skills. They will get a hands-on experience in counselling, thereby giving an opportunity for personal development.”

Though they are planning to launch Aganya in Coimbatore, Prashanthi and Sadhana want to do workshops in Chennai as well. “Chennai-based psychologist Sumathi Chandrasekaren, who runs Neha Foundation, has showed interest in collaborating with us. Talks are going on and we hope that everything will fall in place,” Prashanthi sums up.

Aganya is likely to be officially launched in the month of April this year.