Communities, Stories and Practices
“Alone, we can do so little; together, we can do so much” – Helen Keller
CSP’s mission statement:
To build empowering communities by creating, raising, and spreading awareness about what stories in our minds are, and their impact on our well-being.
Why Communities, Stories and Practices?
As we wade through history - humans have always sought belonging and safety through communities. Being a human means that we are constantly interacting with people and places - and these communities have a certain culture that brings them together. These communities hold the very fabric of our perception as human beings. These were more often than not defined by a common place or defined geography. The stories we are told about cultures become deeply embedded in us - myths and legends are the lens through which the basis of culture is established. In a way, the stories that we tell ourselves are also derived from our communities. Practices inscribed in culture become very second nature, we sometimes don’t even realise we are doing something from muscle memory of culture having tuned us into it. These stories and practices that these communities embedded in us are the schemas of our thoughts, beliefs, and actions. The natural course of history also established humans as one superior to the other, one better than the other, with good and bad cultures - this had repercussions of many communities retaliating to uphold their communities’ identity. Repercussions came in many forms - wars, genocides, discrimination based on sex, creed, race, religion etc.
The advent of globalization and the internet then brought about a radical shift in the type of communities we interact with. Suddenly we had access to communities that we probably would not even ever meet physically - but we could hear those stories, find a connection with them, pay those stories forward, follow their practices and be a part of that community in ways that we never belonged to before. This also changed something fundamental about communities - there is a scope where people are realizing that the communities they are born into are not always empowering them to become a better version of themselves. They are exploring what is relevant and not, and seeking communities that will accept them and where they can find the belonging that is not offered in their roots. The path however has been, and continues to be met with resistance to change, and a lack of empathy. This creates a great cost— growth.
But, this doesn’t have to always hold. The opposite of something begets similar problems. There could be a better way. How many of us chose these communities willingly? How many of us have a choice to explore them, question them, leave them or attach ourselves to different communities? How many of us are told the origins of the stories and practices of our communities? Why are we protecting cultures and communities through sticking to age old stories? How many of us ask “Why” through wonder and curiosity? Where are our communities heading towards? Are we creating newer communities by being aware of the stories and practices that are conditioned into us? How can we recondition ourselves into more empowering spaces?
Communities, Stories and Practices (CSP), is an SM Mission through which children are exploring the depths of human connection - with self and the outside world - and it is not enough to settle with what is given. Mission CSP is on a quest to wonder, question, explore, empathize, innovate and create pathways and products to better experience our communities, be aware of ourselves and build empowering stories. and practices in our daily lives.
OUR JOURNEY SO FAR
October 2021
Now that CSP has officially kickstarted, how can we learn more about the Communities, Stories and Practices of our own community? Could that be influences?’ So we explored.
How? We created a survey and sent it out to our community. We got to know what most of our community members are aware that they tell themselves stories.
Then we asked ourselves, how about us? Do well tell ourselves stories? How do we know for sure? What are the different practices that we have? What kinds of stories do we tell ourselves? To know these, we created another survey, and filled them out ourselves for 15 days. We then had masterclasses on how to interpret those results
How? We created a survey and sent it out to our community. We got to know what most of our community members are aware that they tell themselves stories.
Then we asked ourselves, how about us? Do well tell ourselves stories? How do we know for sure? What are the different practices that we have? What kinds of stories do we tell ourselves? To know these, we created another survey, and filled them out ourselves for 15 days. We then had masterclasses on how to interpret those results
November 2021
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Then it was time to wonder. What more do we want to know about C,S and P? What does it all really mean to us? Together we put our heads together and arrived at many wonder questions.
In our attempt to understand and dig deep, we had masterclasses on how to start researching on our own, what are the safety measure we need to take, how to get the most out of our research |
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December 2021
All this research needed to go somewhere. So we had masterclasses on how use Canva and channel our findings using Infographics templates! Here are a few of our explorations and trials after oh, so many errors!
Using all the information, knowledge and skills we acquired, we presented our findings on Canva during the Experiential Open Day!
Using all the information, knowledge and skills we acquired, we presented our findings on Canva during the Experiential Open Day!
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Jan - Mar 2022
Post January, the children built on their exploration of Communities, Stories and Practices to arrive at "How might we create a safe and happy space in school?"
Ideas that emerged were:
1. Having an empowerment committee that works on inspiring people by curating material
2. Interviewing the community on their awareness of their practices
3. Asking children what a safe space looks like for them and curating those experiences.
They worked on curating Inspiration for the school! Watch the video below:
Ideas that emerged were:
1. Having an empowerment committee that works on inspiring people by curating material
2. Interviewing the community on their awareness of their practices
3. Asking children what a safe space looks like for them and curating those experiences.
They worked on curating Inspiration for the school! Watch the video below:
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They also wrote acrostic poems about what words connected to the school when they said "Safe."
June - December 2022
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Before heading to the new academic year, how do we represent all that we know CSP to hold?
And children arrived at the creation of an official logo! But what do we want the logo to represent ? Children together arrived at the below, "Communities are our ecosystem, Stories our anchors, and our Practices are our sails. Together, we, and the communities, stories and practices that we encode, contributes to the world and the way it is. Let us build the most empowering CSPs." |
As we moved into the year, there were many disempowering stories and stereotypes all around (in books, songs, stories we hear) that were constantly coming at children. To counter these, they sat together to break down stories -and targetted stereotypes in superheroes and fairytales, such as breaking down the famous fairytales and asking questions and adding different perspectives. Let's look at a few lines from the context of 'Beauty and the Beast'.
Love made the world seem rosy and light,
The feeling made her heart glow bright
The true love’s kiss turned the beast into a Prince,
Beauty and the Beast lived happily ever since.
Inner voice:
What if the Beast had turned into a Princess?
How would a fairytale be if the characters had some skill sets!
What if the loving beast had stayed a beast, and said
‘I’d like to call you, not beauty, but brains’ instead?!
Or breaking the gender stereotype of 'boys don't cry', such as
Adolescent years passed by
Times came which made him want to cry
But he had to hide his tears
As according to this ideal world
“Boys don’t cry”
Time passed
And Jimmmy thought,
“Why should I always be brave?
Am I becoming a slave?
Is it wrong to show emotions?
Isn’t it just a big delusion?
What happens if I show emotions?
Would I be labelled a girl?
Would my world go into a swirl?
Would it create a big commotion?
Because according to this flawless world
“Boys don’t cry!”
Looking at the majority of the books that are widely available and the lack of empowering stories, CSP collaborated with a few publishers (such as Pratham Books, Karadi Tales, Tulika Publishers, and Zorba Books) and opened up a stall of empowering stories, to make them widely available within the school, to begin with.
Love made the world seem rosy and light,
The feeling made her heart glow bright
The true love’s kiss turned the beast into a Prince,
Beauty and the Beast lived happily ever since.
Inner voice:
What if the Beast had turned into a Princess?
How would a fairytale be if the characters had some skill sets!
What if the loving beast had stayed a beast, and said
‘I’d like to call you, not beauty, but brains’ instead?!
Or breaking the gender stereotype of 'boys don't cry', such as
Adolescent years passed by
Times came which made him want to cry
But he had to hide his tears
As according to this ideal world
“Boys don’t cry”
Time passed
And Jimmmy thought,
“Why should I always be brave?
Am I becoming a slave?
Is it wrong to show emotions?
Isn’t it just a big delusion?
What happens if I show emotions?
Would I be labelled a girl?
Would my world go into a swirl?
Would it create a big commotion?
Because according to this flawless world
“Boys don’t cry!”
Looking at the majority of the books that are widely available and the lack of empowering stories, CSP collaborated with a few publishers (such as Pratham Books, Karadi Tales, Tulika Publishers, and Zorba Books) and opened up a stall of empowering stories, to make them widely available within the school, to begin with.
January - April 2023
Looking around the school, with the intention of creating 'School as a Safe and Joyous Space', children saw that playground is a space where a lot of them spend a lot of time where they integrate the real world and everything they learn. It is also a space where bullying, stereotyping, and all kinds of play happen. It became more clear through the surveys and interviews that children needed tools to wade through the experiences to make the playground an empowering space to be in, not just in the school but also beyond it.
So together, they decided to arrive at the Playground Toolkit, a collections of stories, scenarios, poems and songs that can empathise with the situations they are experiencing and give solutions.
First iteration has been done, and this will become available for the public in the digital format by August of 2023.
Learning to work on their skills digitally and build their digital literacy during the Fridays where they worked on their missions collectively, children worked on different formats of sharing their thoughts and expressing their ideas through podcasts, catalogues, newsletters, e-mails, and videos.
To sum up their work so far, children first worked on putting their ideas together and created a newsletter. Take a look at it below.
| csp_newsletter.pdf |
Along with it, they worked on bundling the empowering books and created a digital catalogue to make it available to all who would like to take a look at the bundles and buy the books. Here it is.
| f.e.b_catalogue_.pdf |
Talking about stories, are fairytales empowering? They are so widely available, and our children had started their work on breaking and rebuilding them. What would the next step look like?
And we arrived at 'Questions on the Margin', a format where fairytales books were taken and asked questions where they wrote their wonders, thoughts, ideas, usage of words, and questioned perspectives about the story and characters in general. Children then spent some time creating a podcast. It will be available to the public once it undergoes a few more iterations.
Winding up for the academic year 2022- 2023
And we arrived at 'Questions on the Margin', a format where fairytales books were taken and asked questions where they wrote their wonders, thoughts, ideas, usage of words, and questioned perspectives about the story and characters in general. Children then spent some time creating a podcast. It will be available to the public once it undergoes a few more iterations.
Winding up for the academic year 2022- 2023
As we looked back and reflected on the year spent, children wondered about the different ways in which they were touched by the mission and how it has impacted each of them, curating them in a video format. Take a look at it here.
"What are the projects we are taking forward to the next year?
What are few new projects we would like to explore?"
Putting their thoughts together, children reflected on their work so far and closed for the year, with inspiration and fire to kick-start the new academic year in June.
What are few new projects we would like to explore?"
Putting their thoughts together, children reflected on their work so far and closed for the year, with inspiration and fire to kick-start the new academic year in June.