Special Feature: Partnering with Dream Programs : Nomito Kamdar, The Adventurers

Nomito Kamdar shares her long-standing association with Dream A Dream. What she calls – A learning journey. It was in 2004 when I first visited the Dream A Dream office and met Vishal Talreja, one lone person with a very BIG idea. I slowly found myself investing in this remarkable Idea myself. I offered the expertise of our organization, The Adventurers - A Wilderness School to use outdoors and adventure activity as a medium of realizing life Skills.  The following summer, we kicked off our very first program with a bunch of 20 children at Honnemardu, our training center on the Lingannamakki reservoir. It is heartening to see that as of August 2010 we worked with over 1600 children conducting high-impact 2 to 4 day camps for them.

 The impacts of efforts are clearly visible. The transformation is magical and long-lasting. Feedback from the partner schools reiterates that the children have become more confident, deal with fear, understand others perspectives, and do things they never thought they were capable of. They can be seen challenging themselves, helping their team mates achieve along with them, being aware of themselves as persons with their strengths and weakness, strategizing on the team’s capability to achieve the desired goal.  As a Dream employee recently said “sharing, caring and daring” - all of this through activities completely based in the outdoors, including, trekking, camping, coracling, swimming, survival camps, solo survival, quiet time in the forest, etc. Again and again the Dream A Dream children have described their happiest times of their lives are spent in Dream A Dream programs - be it football, creative arts or Adventure Camps. 

This is the biggest impact we can strive for – bringing more smiles on the faces of children. Learning from the camps and the children has been a never ending, extremely fascinating journey for us.  We have learnt, unlearnt and continuously defined and refined our programs.  For us along with the Dream Adventure Team it has been one intense learning experience, with us gaining much much more than any one child in particular. As we embark on more ambitious goals, we look forward to more volunteers, employees, partners, investing themselves in this very enriching life changing experience.