Tana Bana

This component has been the bedrock of Aagaaz. We have been working out of Hazrat Nizamuddin Basti for the last 11 years. With this sustained effort, we are now at a stage, where we can imagine taking this commitment to more children and communities. This has become possible because of two primary reasons. While drama is at the centre of this initiative, there is a lot else that make it sustained. Building relationships with other stakeholders like the children’s families, in some cases the other institutions that they access, and their teachers; Getting to know the geographical context; engaging with the child’s world outside of the drama class; and perhaps the most fundamental to this initiative is the commitment to “turn up”, despite any challenges (and there may be many) that emerge.

Our collective of facilitators which began with just 1 person, has already grown into 24 practitioners. This team, which includes 8 young people from Nizamuddin, who started their journey when this community based initiative began, were still in primary school. They remained with the initiative through these years and are now working with children in communities.