- A Class IX girl was keen to learn taekwondo but her father objected to it because it could “injure her face”
- Another girl trusted her friend with a secret but the friend spilled the beans, making her a laughing stock in a larger group
Girls in a government school expressed their concerns and opened up to a group of psychologists about problems at home, in school or in their neighbourhoods.
A day-long session was held at Tiljala Balika Vidyalaya last month for students of Classes IX to XII, where students were given a space to talk, listen and seek redress.
Organised by Mental Health Foundation, Kolkata, Bhalo thakar sahoj path, chali amra eksathe — which roughly translates to The easy way to a good life, let’s do it together — was a workshop on building life skills and negotiating adolescence.
“We deal with adolescents who come from different backgrounds. There are about 10 per cent who come from low-income families and there are some who come from dysfunctional families. We want them to talk about their problems rather than keep them buried inside,” said Avinanda Ghosh Dastidar, headmistress, Tiljala Balika Vidyalaya.
The format of the workshop gave the girls the freedom to engage in a conversation with psychologists rather than being passive listeners.
For most of them, it was a first-time experience. Access to professional counsellors is a privilege they often cannot afford.
“Many of them have psychological problems but they are neither aware of them nor do they know that they can seek help. Reaching out to them was a target,” said psychiatrist Jai Ranjan Ram, joint director, Mental Health Foundation.
Ram said while one objective was to make access possible to them, another was to make them more resilient.
“Many of them are coping with adversities but are not aware of them. They also have a lot of resources that they can access, be it their parents, teachers, friends... that they have to be told about,” he said.
A room of 150 students who were shy and reticent at the start gradually opened up over the day, not just sharing their problems but also asking questions about how to navigate them.
The psychologists devised games that helped them open up.
The team from the foundation spoke about situations that many children their age go through to help them identify. The problems could be issues between parents, a disturbed family life with an errant elder brother who might have taken to wrong company. Or relationship issues or their parents expecting them to follow rules that teenagers are not always ready to.
The concept of boundaries and ideas of what is acceptable and what they can allow when it comes to their bodies were explained to the girls.
In a year or two, these girls will step into college and if they have any feeling of anger or pent-up emotion within them, that has to be addressed, Ghosh Dastidar said.
“Maybe in a school environment, they are keeping it inside because of rules and discipline but perhaps it is not being addressed. The danger is that once they step out of school, it might find manifestation in an improper way. Hence we need to talk about it more,” she said.