Each year, Pravah puts up a notice at the colleges where it runs the SMILE program, inviting students to join a theater workshop. Once a group is formed, the organizers hold a general workshop and then help the group to evolve a play on any issue it feels strongly about. The youth volunteers then perform the plays before the people they want to reach.
One such play, "Paani Paani Re" ("water, water") was the product of a joint theater workshop between college student volunteers of the SMILE program and a group of slum dweller youths from Delhi's Sultanpuri area. The students discovered the underlying tensions within the slum community and produced a play that reveals a keen understanding and empathy for a social group that is very different from their own.
The storyline of "Paani-Paani Re" as it appears on the Pravah Web site:
"A new boy in a slum is going to fetch water. He enters the play arena singing and goes to a tap. As he is about to fill water, two local persons approach him. They forbid him to use their tap – the tap that their community has put up. He belongs to another community, they say, and has not paid for the installation of the tap. He has no right to take their water. The boy tries other taps, but is refused everywhere. Helpless, he goes home crying. His brother consoles him and together they try to solve the problem. They discuss that anger and destructive action is not going to solve anything. They should instead motivate the community to get together and go to the municipality officer to demand their rights. They exit singing: "Awaken, all who are asleep . . . time passes . . . here is someone to wake you up . . ."
I was 19 when I joined Pravah's SMILE program in 2002 and it was a very rewarding experience. For the first time, I was exposed to people from very different backgrounds, occupations and age groups. I became aware that there are people beyond me circle of family and friends with so many problems, but one never meets them and hears of their experiences first hand.
I attended the World Social Forum held at Hyderabad as part of my exposure program and it had a great impact on me. I especially remember seeing a documentary film on the crisis faced by handloom workers, the socio-economic pressures they are facing and how some of them have even been driven to suicide. I was deeply moved and it was one of the reasons I decided to do a diploma in human rights along with my master's in sociology.
The program also gave me the confidence to say what I am thinking without any inhibitions.
Shruti Chaturvedi, a student at Delhi University, talks about his experiences with SMILE:
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