Giving children in shelters the freedom to dream

Twelve-year-old Rajshree (name changed) can’t wait for the last week of February. She, along with her three friends, will be heading to a resort in ECR for a ‘dream camp’. It is an annual outbound-experiential camp by MAD wherein children in shelters undergo personal transformation, connect with their dreams, and gain confidence when they are provided with positive exposure to new and unfamiliar experiences. 

Through its 10 years of experience in the field of working with children, the organisation has ascertained that a basic difference that lies between a child living a shelter and a child living at his/her own house are the circumstances, environments, the exposure-factors essential to let a child introspect, ‘dream’, and thereby, set larger goals in life. “The one true goal at the end of the camp is every child that leaves at the end of those three days should go forward convinced that their future is bright. Our interventions and support systems exist for the children well until the age of 28 even after they have jobs and are stable to ensure continuity and support infrastructures,” says Devyani Mahadevan Public Relations Fellow, Make A Difference, Chennai. This year they are planning to take about 70 children on February 24 to 26. 

“Children in shelters face a lot of challenges in their overall development and growth due to the monotonous nature of the environment they live in and the stress they are in because of their backgrounds. A lack of a strong dream/vision for their future results in low motivation and poor decision making skills and along with this comes the inability to cope with the difficulties in new experiences/challenges they encounter when they leave the shelter homes. Hence dream camps are organised by MAD across 23 cities,” adds Devyani.