Empowering the Vision Project (ENVISION) has at its core mission, mentoring and empowering of young Tibetans. In this regard, ENVISION has conducted numerous workshops, conferences and school outreach programmes for young Tibetans since its inception in 2007. The Leadership Workshop for class XII students of TCV Selaqui and STS Poanta Sahib has been a regular on our calendar since the last three years. The Workshop this year was held at the SOS Industrial Training Institute (ITI) Selaqui, formerly known as SOS Vocational Training Centre for Tibetans, on 08-09 April 2017. With the Leadership Workshop, ENVISION has made a deliberate effort to steer away from the standard methodology (theoretical presentation on leadership framework with little/no experiential learning) and focused more on creative/interactive approaches of developing Leadership. As such, our Leadership Workshop focused on exploring the creativity of the students and leadership through theatre, creative writing and art, with direction provided by young Tibetan role models and Indian volunteer professionals as Resource Persons. Through these three media, students explored topics ranging from the true purpose of education, to self-awareness and assertiveness, while on the second day volunteering Indian professional mentors helped students with identifying career options and goal setting.
The two-day workshop started with an orientation on 7th April evening where students from the two schools were introduced to one another. They were informed of the two-day agenda, the importance of being kind to one another and being responsible. To facilitate maximum interaction between the students of the two schools, an equal mix of Selaqui and Paonta students were divided into three groups, named Potala, Sigma and Dreamers as chosen by themselves, to represent group activities at the workshop. Additionally, buddy groups were formed with two selaqui students to one Paonta student in a group.
One of the highlights of this year’s Leadership workshop was the presence of Tenzin Pema, the first Tibetan woman boxer as a special guest. A professional Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) fighter, who recently won a Bronze Medal at the Second International Thai Martial Arts Games and Festival 2017, held in Bangkok, Thailand. Pema spoke at length about her experiences, struggles and challenges, and how she worked different jobs to finance her training in martial arts and later for participation in competitions across India. An enthused number of students asked her questions on life as a boxer, her training and goals, all of which she answered with candor and clarity. She also demonstrated some of her boxing skills and techniques with some students on stage.
Both the days – 08-09 April – started with early morning yoga sessions led by ENVISION staff members. Karma Chungdak la, General-Secretary of SOS Tibetan Homes Foundation, Mussoorie officially began the two-day workshop sessions with his reflective and powerful speech on the ‘True Purpose of Education’. Karma Chungdak la stressed that true purpose of education is to make us a complete human being and awaken the human intelligence which can happen only with genuine and lifelong learning. He also spoke on the importance of inculcating true human values in the educational system. He urged students to value learning over degrees and grades and cautioned against becoming the slave of jobs that pay the bills but never enrich lives. The session ended with students in the three groups reflecting and presenting their thoughts on the importance and challenges to learning to which Karma Chungdak la then shared his observations.
This session was followed by a session by Siddharth Singh and Damko Wangyal who are volunteers at Initiatives of Change (IofC). Siddharth, a coach, designer, and facilitator, conveyed the importance of bringing the change within self before trying to change the world. Damko Wangyal shared his own personal story wherein he took responsibility for his mistakes and transformed himself into a more ethical human being.
The session started off with an interesting activity which beautifully laid out the main theme of the session- the need to be flexible in life and yet with values that remain stable. Students reflected on values that are important in general and to them in particular.
Two pertinent questions were posed for self-reflection:
If everybody in the world is just like you, what kind of a world would it b?
In the world today, are you part of a problem or are you a part of a solution?
The final session of Day one focused on the subject of self -awareness and assertiveness conducted by three exceptionally talented young Tibetan professionals. Visual Art by Artist Karma Sichoe, Performing Arts by theatre activist Lhakpa Tsering Lamphuk, and Creative Writing by Poet and Writer Tenzin Kaysang.
Speaking to the students, Karma Sichoe presented his arts via a presentation and explained his process and means of perception while drawing portraits. He expressed his belief in the need to have a sense of curiosity and struggle to search for an answer to serve as a catalyst to be a better artist. Tenzin Kaysang whose short book of poetry ‘Broken Portraits’ published recently, discussed the importance of reading, writing and developing narratives connected to Tibetan history, literature and culture. She specifically emphasized on the need to take control of our own narratives. While Lhakpa said that once he realized theatre and drama are powerful tools to address social and political issues, he pursued it actively and now tries to change the status quo through his work with Tibet Theatre performing across the country with his troupe.
After each of the creative artists shared their motivation and the various aspects of their art, the students were divided based on their personal interests of the three art forms. In the groups, they had one professional who further introduced the art form and also took them through an exercise on how art can be a tool of self-expression toward asserting one’s idea, belief, or just telling a story.
The day finally came to an end with an open-mic show by the three groups at dinner. Students from the three groups presented a medley of Tibetan and Bollywood songs and dance.
The first session of the last day’s workshop was on identifying career aspirations and goal setting led by Mr.Vikram Dutt, Chief Advisor for ENVISION’s School Outreach Programme and Mrs. Vatsala Singh, Principal of DPS Dehradun. Mr.Vikram spoke on the importance of resilience, leadership, career aspirations, while Mrs. Vatsala spoke on the power of discretion, the importance of identifying one’s personality traits before choosing a career path. The last session of the day was a dialogue between the students and ENVISION’s core mentors, Manu Sabherwal, Rachit Gupta and Stevie Phuntsog, who discussed the upcoming yearlong School Outreach Programme to be undertaken by them. Mentors gave an apt description of their volunteership as providing “A window to the outside world’. They expressed their commitment to do their best in helping the students get a view of the outside world through their understanding and experience as professionals/individuals and as Indians. Each one of them stressed the importance of expanding and stretching comfort zones.
Soon after, the students filled a pre-assessment questionnaire and a post-assessment questionnaire will be carried out at the end of the 2017 session. ENVISION will use the information gathered from this to evaluate the programme and assess the impact.
The two-day workshop finally concluded with ENVISION’s “Let’s Make a Difference” session, wherein students shared their commitment to making a difference by practicing some of the lessons from the leadership workshop, using the SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-bound) criteria. Their commitment ranged from personal plans such as maintaining daily journals; to overcoming stage fright; asking questions daily, participating in school activities, reading and meditating daily; to helping each other with homework, being kind and learning among other.
The workshop was indeed an exercise in motivating these young students to aspire for big goals, through leadership, critical thinking, being responsible and through self-expression. It was also through the exchanges and time spend with these children, a lesson for all of us – the organisers and resource persons – on humility, responsibility, patience and optimism.
Judging from the final session and student’s written evaluations, it was apparent that the students learned much and benefited immensely from the activity and exercise-oriented workshop. Empowering the Vision would like to thank all those involved from the resource persons to the helpful school authorities of the two schools, to ITI staff and students, to participating students of STS Poanta, and TCV Selaqui for helping us reach our goals for this workshop.
“ Today I learned many new things one of which is that everyday is a second chance, and asking questions is important.” a student participant
“I think I came closer to (realising) what I want to become in the future. I was really able to express myself well (through the workshop).” – a student participant