Life skills are fundamental to development of child & youth from vulnerable backgrounds and enable successful transition and integration into society. Our programs foster life skills including Interpersonal Skills, Cognitive skills, along with creativity, confidence, self-awareness and a passion for learning.

What are Life Skills?

The World Health Organization has defined life skills as "abilities for adaptive and positive behaviour that enable individuals to deal effectively with the demands and challenges of everyday life." In particular, life skills are a group of cognitive, personal and interpersonal abilities that help people make informed decisions, solve problems, think critically and creatively, communicate effectively, build healthy relationships, empathize with others, and cope with and manage their lives in a healthy and productive manner.

Why is Life Skills Development Important?

A child's holistic development is one wherein he/she develops an ability to cope with real life situations outside of a support institution; where they are able to take conscious, confident decisions about their life; and are enabled to successfully integrate into mainstream society. For this, the necessary skills are: decision-making, problem solving, communication and interpersonal skills, self-awareness, empathy, coping with emotions and stress.

Most institutions support vulnerable children/ youth, primarily through basic needs such as food, shelter, education and primary health care; leaving a huge gap in the child's comprehensive development and growth. As such, when a child/ youth 'graduates' from a support institution who provides for basic needs, there may still be a gap of life skills development opportunity and exposure. Without an opportunity to develop cognitive, personal and interpersonal abilities, the child/ youth may fail to realize their potential and drop out of gainful employment and/or be unsuccessful in managing their families and households.

An Indian and International Context of Life Skills:

'Life Skills' though an essential part of a child's overall development, has often been mis-interpreted and is a largely un-supported issue in India. Consequently, while there are multiple institutions that provide basic needs such as food, shelter, education and primary health care for vulnerable children; there aren't many organizations that support Life Skills Based Education Programs. Traditionally, education has always been considered as the key to economic freedom and hence access to opportunities outside the sphere of education has always been a low-priority in India.

However, around the world, Life Skills-Based Education (LSBE)  is being adopted as a means to empower young people in challenging situations. LSBE refers to an interactive process of teaching and learning which enables learners to acquire knowledge and to develop attitudes and skills which support the adoption of healthy behaviours.  It is also a critical element in UNICEF's definition of quality education .

In a country where there are millions of vulnerable children and youth, Dream A Dream noticed this critical missing link in their development needs and strived to fulfill and empower them through Life Skills. Endeavoring to give an access to opportunities to explore creativity, sports, outdoors and related fields; Dream A Dream improves the quality of their lives as well as provides a platform where innovation can take place.  For example, a HIV+ child may have access to education but creativity will help the child give vent to their emotions and traumatic experiences.  A 12-year-old runaway street kid exposed to a particular art, music, theatre will not only help the child build critical life-skills but will also provide an avenue for the child to build a professional career in any of these areas.

Since 1999, Dream A Dream has worked with over 3000 vulnerable children and youth and offering them innovative programs that foster life skills.

Measuring Life Skills Development

While we are happy that every day, in a little way, we impact thousands of lives positively and transform them forever, Dream A Dream has also developed its own Life Skills Assessment Tool to measure the impact of these programs. In use since 2007, this tool allows Dream A Dream to collect data on key indicators for children at three intervals throughout the 'program year'. Some of these key indicators include: decision-making, interpersonal interaction, initiative, conflict management and ability to understand and follow directions. This data is useful to ensure that the children are receiving the quantity and quality of programs that they need at these crucial stages of development and helps analyze the impact of their participation in a program on their development. It also allows Dream A Dream to conduct year on year comparisons to illustrate the remarkable changes that take place over time.