New Beginnings, New Challenges: Threads of Humanity

23-Feb-2021

The year 2021 saw us begin our work at Majnu ka Tila (project site) with new gusto. 2020 had been a tricky year for the Threads of Humanity program. Our physical visits to the Home had stopped earlier in the year as a result of the lockdown. To get the on-going interventions back up was a challenge. We tirelessly coordinated with the staff at the Home to start the online workshop process. While our effort never lacked intent, we were always dismayed by factors beyond our control, mostly pertaining to internet connectivity (read more about it here). As a result, therefore, our message and the workshop activity never effectively got to the boys. As soon as the lockdown lifted, we shifted to a part-on-ground, part-online model. Two of our facilitators were always present at the project site following all rules of social distancing and sanitisation, even as one of our facilitators connected with the boys online. The workshops were planned much in advance so that even when the connection was patchy, the workshop never stalled. Simultaneously, our team was also connecting with the boys outside, released on early bail/parole, owing to social distancing norms at the project site. We were constantly in touch with them, providing a safe space for them to express themselves in these uncertain times.  In the last year, we ran workshops to specifically address the growing emotional uncertainty around Covid, and the resultant impact on the boys’ emotional health. Meanwhile, we also waited for our grant from the Azim Premji Philanthropic Initiatives (APPI) to come through. Our wait and work to get the grant finally paid off as we received confirmation in December 2020 about the approval of our grant. Our team had been tirelessly working with the APPI team for over a year, to get approval for this grant. We wanted to start a ‘Comprehensive Program for the Rehabilitation of Young Offenders’, building on our previous research project (read more about it here) and address areas that we earlier weren’t able to. Our plans got delayed by a year because of Covid. We even adapted our work proposal submitted to APPI, adjusting to the emotional demands and logistics that changed during the pandemic. In our proposed three-year program to APPI, the first year would now go in trying to find rhythm and grove of the workshops as we know. We also introduced a new element to the program wherein we keep in regular touch with the boys who have been released on early bail/parole due to Covid protocols, following on from the practice we began during the pandemic itself. A comprehensive rehabilitation would therefore mean to work with the boys extensively when they’re inside the facility and keep in constant touch when they are released. The sheer joy of our program being accepted and the grant coming through was what led to an increase in our gusto and enthusiasm. We started our program in the first week of January 2021, by first recognizing our sample group and asking for volunteers to participate in the workshop process. After that, we went on to conduct standardized psychological assessments on our participants, in order to enable ourselves to adjudge the impact of the workshop process. The chosen ‘Mental Health Battery (MHB)’ is a comprehensive scale that covers several parameters that we’ll be addressing this year. Complimentarily, we also selected samples for Case Studies and involved the staff’s feedback at the home in our data collection process. The idea to triangulate our information is to make our research design exhaustive and expansive. We began the workshops in the second week of January with a group of 30 boys. Some boys had been released/transferred even before the workshops began, our scientific enquiry had to be repeated with the new arrivals. The data collection process continued well into February, as the group size kept fluctuating. As mentioned earlier, the stay-time at the Home is now sporadic, as new cases are being monitored faster to de-clutter the Home. A month now into the program, we have a relatively stable group and are proceeding to conclude the first part of the first module in the workshop process. Our three-year program is divided into six modules and each module is divided into six months and therefore we will end up working with a lot more participants inside the facility each year. Each module has also been divided into various parts, depending on the emotional capability we're trying to address.  The journey has just begun. There is excitement and nervousness at the same time. We have immense gratitude for the opportunity to be able to go on-ground and do what we love. At the same time, there’s always the uncertainty surrounding the times we’re in. Our relationship with the Home is growing deeper with each passing week, and we hope to continue this fruitful association for times to come. 

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