Dream a Dream

It aims at transforming teacher training by using a training model adapted from the Creative Community Model developed by Partners for Youth Empowerment (PYE), which focuses on nurturing empathy and developing deep listening skills in young children to tap their potential.

District

Bangalore

Dream a Dream's Career Connect Programme tackles the challenge of empowering young people from vulnerable backgrounds through skill-building. Since its launch in 2009, the program has shown that life skills are essential for securing jobs, maintaining employment, and breaking the cycle of poverty. Unfortunately, 20-25% of Indian children aged 11-15 drop out of secondary school, with only 15% progressing to higher-secondary school (15-18-year-olds). This leads to them either staying home or joining unorganized labor markets, missing out on career and life improvement opportunities.

To address this, Dream a Dream established the Career Connect Programme as a center-based model for youths aged 14-23. This initiative operates in under-resourced neighborhoods in Bangalore, specifically Bommanahalli and KR Puram. It offers Computer Education, Spoken English, Communication Skills, Money Management, and Workplace Readiness programs. These are blended with a life skills approach to enhance resilience, confidence, and adaptability in response to the ever-changing job market.

The Career Connect Programme is divided into three sub-programs:

Life Skill Development: Engaging 14-23-year-olds annually, this program focuses on life skills and preparedness. It includes a 25-day curriculum in Career Connect Centers, involving 16 modules of Computer Literacy or Spoken English and 8 sessions dedicated to life skills development. The experiential approach integrates technology and life skills to create a holistic learning experience.

Skill Development: Graduates of the Career Connect Programme benefit from trending career-focused skill development. This includes vocational training, delivered in partnership with experts over 45 days. Before enrolling, all participants undergo the Life Skill Development program, ensuring they possess the necessary life skills for career success.

Last Mile Support: This program supports graduates by pairing them with volunteer mentors

States

Karnataka

Dream a Dream’s After School Life Skills Program uses the powerful experiential medium of Football to develop Life Skills in young people. Trained Life Skills facilitators deliver the program weekly for about 25 sessions a year for 8-15-year-olds in affordable private schools and government and charity-run schools. The sessions are delivered in a high-quality environment using a Life Skills curriculum designed age appropriately and developed in collaboration with Grassroots Soccer, PYE Global, and expert clinical psychologists. The activities are divided into structured and unstructured sessions. Each facilitator does about 15 structured sessions yearly and about 10-15 unstructured sessions for a batch of 25-30 children.
Structured sessions are taken from the curriculum, and each session is designed around a particular life skill such as problem-solving, interaction with one another, managing conflict, etc. Football drills, physical fitness sessions, group activities, and playing the game are all integrated into a session and focus on a particular life skill. Unstructured sessions give freedom to a facilitator to be innovative, try some of their ideas, be flexible and sensitive to the needs of the group they are working with, and respond to real-life situations that might happen during a session.
Each session is designed for a 120 Minute engagement and includes a Warm-Up / Icebreaker, which introduces the theme, a primary life skills activity using Football or creative arts techniques, a Football Game, an art session, a reflection circle, and finally, a closing activity followed by refreshments.