Bawana Bal Gurus: Child Leadership Unplugged

On top of a treacherously high terrace, I looked through the camera lens of my student as it panned to capture an overview of JJ Colony, a resettlement colony in Bawana,West Delhi. It made a pretty picture of closely knit innumerable clusters of 3-4 storied pucca houses with a common boundary made of open bricks, colourful walls and roof tops.A variety of freshly hung clothes in the open terraces suggested many people living together.

Film Workshop Participant 

As his camera lens moved further down to ground level, up close, I saw an outgrown slum bursting at its seams attempting to mainstream itself with the rest of the city as if to get out of its misery of ill management, poor sanitation and public amenities. 

JJ Colony, Bawana Resettlement colony

As I walked through the streets of J J Colony, children of all ages were just about, everywhere. Most were loitering and hanging out. Some were working, looking after siblings and washing utensils. Many were playing with marbles others with cricket bats. Some children could be seen with cloth bags and books. 

There were a few who would look straight into the eye: clean, smart and focused. Most greeted me as I passed by them. And there were others, playing around, unaware, unkempt, uncared and almost wasted. This distinction between the two types of children was obvious. Some purposeful, others lost. To me this gap between the children in either side of the spectrum, seemed to be an area which needed intervention. Later I came to know that I was not far from reality. 

An 11 year old girl, neat plaits, long frock, rubber sandals, bright eyes, looks at me straight and tells me, “ I am a Bal Gurukul Faculty. I am a teacher. I teach children. Initially I started with one child and now I teach 12 children. And there are more who want to learn with me.”

Me: So what do you teach?

Girl: Whatever I know, I teach them. It could be English, Hindi, Math or Drawing. Anything.

Me: And where do you teach them?

Girl: In my Kitchen. When mom has finished cooking. I run my Bal Gurukul Class.

Me: When do you find the time? You go to a School yourself, don’t you?

Girl: I come back from school, go to remedial education at Centre. I come back home and run a class with my students.

Me: Why do you do this? Isn’t it strenuous for you?

Girl: I want each and every child of our colony to become literate, go to school and not dropout of school. Also when I teach them, I revise my concepts and both of us benefit.

Me: Do you charge them money for your services as a teacher?

Girl: No, I love teaching. Infact I give incentives to my students when they do exceptionally well. I give them a toffee.

Bal Gurukul Faculty 

I was still coming to terms with this conversation as she guided me through 5 feet wide lane towards her house. A self painted signboard displayed prominently alongside the rust tin door with bold text “Muskan’s Bal Gurukul Class”. Muskan helped me identify similar name boards in various other houses. I came to know that there were Bal Gurukul Classes running in nearly every lane of JJ Colony. 

Bal Gurukul Class Board

This initial conversation with Muskaan was enough for me to get interested in Bal Gurukul. Bal Gurukul is a child leadership movement which started in 2013. School going children who attend Navjyoti Foundation's Remedial Program have got together on a mission to enrol numerous out-of-school children and make them ready-to-school. First they prepare the children and then seek the foundation help to get them admitted to their local Government Schools. Within a span of 2 years, 700 Bal Gurus are reaching out to 7000 non-school going children in Bawana Resettlement Colony. The initiative runs as a university model, with children taking the roles of a registrar, heads of department, faculty, administrative and non-administrative roles. Children are an equal participant in the major decisions regarding their learning and development. To fast forward literacy in their area children have taken upon ambitious targets to make their community members, both kids and adults and especially women literate.

Bal Gurukul Faculty, 9 years, using her door as a blackboard 

The children who comprise the Bal Guru advocacy team conduct home visits and encourage the stay-at-home or out-of-school children to join Bal Gurukul classes. Once they have reached a certain level of school readiness, the Bal Gurukul Faculty gets them admissions in regular Government schools in age appropriate classes.

Bal Gurukul faculty Usmanaz, 8 year old, teaching a 5 year old 

In the words of Dr Kiran Bedi, the visionary behind the concept “Gurukul is the coming together of children who love to learn and then teach. It is a national solution to the removal of illiteracy in the country and also to check dropouts. It is also a vast reservoir of teachers in the making and instills early leadership, confidence and giving, at such a young age”.

Dr Kiran Bedi with Bal Gurukul Children

Bal Gurukul faculty has school going children from Age 8 to Age 21. They emit confidence and have the drive to bring about a positive difference around the quality of life around them. Lack of resources have been converted into opportunities.

Bal Gurukul afternoon class in her kitchen 

Space is not a limiting factor to run classes, whether on the roof top or inside their homes or under a tree. Walls and doors have been converted into blackboards. And the Bal Gurukul brigade are unstoppable. The Bal Gurus of Bawana view literacy and education as gateway for their better tomorrow. They realise that a big reason for a lot of children not going to school is because of societal beliefs and practices have strong inroads due to sheer ignorance. As a result child marriages, child labour and under valuing the potential of the girl child is common and accepted as a way of life.

Bal Gurukul  Evening Class on the road side 

Beyond academics, Bal Gurukul Children are impacting the social fabric of their colony in many ways.

To improve things around them, they conducted sanitation drives to clear their drainage and reclaimed parks and planted saplings.

They have stopped child marriage of their peers. 

Some have even got their fathers and other adult members out of alcoholism.

The work they are doing has gained them a lot of trust amongst the community members who view their efforts with renewed respect.

Before meeting the Bal Gurus of Bawana, I understood 'child leadership' differently. For me leadership that was encouraged within the walls of a school and did not go beyond class monitors, project leaders and other school representatives who took lead in sports, editorial and co-curricular activities. During the film workshop with Bal Gurus, as I entered their lives, saw their daily struggles and negotiations. I saw an uncommon child leadership in action. When I interviewed some of them, they candidly share that a teacher is the leader of a class. And the role of a leader is to serve, give and take everybody along. Constantly improve self and impact society. Bal Gurus practice leadership as a way of life to emerge out of illiteracy, ignorance, neglect so that they could lead a life of productivity and dignity. Literacy for all is the first mission they have accomplish. Education for all will be their next step. 

Film Workshop participants with me while making their film 'Bal Gurukul Selfie'

The 'Pester Power' of Children

Children opinionate, decide, persuade, buy.

The advertising and marketing industry have been using this knowledge and targeting children as initiators and influencers for particular products and then developing an appropriate communication strategy targeted at these members to evoke the desired response.

‘Pester Power’ is a common tactic which young children practice which includes crying, nagging and whining which gets their parents to buy them things. As they grow older, pester power gets further refined into nudging, coaxing, arguing, reasoning and even emotional blackmail to achieve what they want. Furthermore as children involve themselves more with a product which appeals to them, they begin commanding an increased level of influence on family matters and decision making.

When it comes to product buying, I am intrigued with the level of brand smartness of our children exhibit and their evolved sense of decision making, brand values and their active viral circle of influence courtesy their peers and social media networking. Perhaps as a social communication experiment, it is worth it to know that, with children being the nucleus of a family, can they extend their influence to impact decisions and practices beyond products and materialism within their ecosystem. Is it possible to harness this remarkable pester power which they possess for behavioural change? Of their Parents. Of Adults. Of the Community. Can schools be the fulcrum to drive change with high quality facilitation and support?

Take for example road safety. Undoubtedly, parents and adults have proven to be extremely poor role models. Increasing road crashes are a testimony to how we conduct ourselves on road. We unabashedly flout rules, pay bribes, maim and kill people and become passive bystanders in case there is a mishap on road. Above all, we are leaving behind a poor road environment which our children will have to put up with and negotiate as they grow.  So our key question: Can children be influencers and take centre stage, firstly to become responsible road users themselves, and secondly, to nudge responsible road behaviour amongst the adults around them?

Through the CineArt Steer to Safety Program, we wanted to find out that with well designed road safety education will children be able to create media messaging which will change mind-sets and attitudes towards the way people engage with roads. We decided to test waters and see whether school students are able to apply their road safety learning to improve their road environment which they experience everyday. Will they be able to sensitize their parents and adults and show them the mirror?

Students of participating schools created their road safety projects which they would drive. Most students were concerned with safe travel to their school. Students created street plays, puppet shows, wall art and quizzes to attract the attention of adults. They took to the streets where their school is located. Bold and confident these road safety volunteers knew that they were on the right side of the law and enforced road rules, their pester power way. They pointed, nudged, sensitized, informed and pleaded. The results were dramatic. Parents were taken by surprise. Most were embarrassed and were quick to admit their fault. They were defensive. Some felt truly guilty. Many admitted they would never do it again. No excuse is justified when deep down you know what you are doing is careless and bad in law. And most parents did not know how to react when children stopped them on the road and earnestly requested them by saying that they loved them and that is the reason they should wear helmet, which is good for their safety and for well-being of their child with them. Small wonder cops indeed!

Through their road safety projects which were smart and snappy, students sensitized bus drivers and van drivers about their vulnerability on road and driver responsibility with school children. Students created attention grabbing artistic speed breakers, installed bilingual warning signage about Blind Curves, worked out solutions for school peak time traffic congestion, created innovative eco-friendly transportation projects and mobile apps aiding safe roads around them. They collaborated and advocated the through radio shows and public campaigns. Each of the 30 student driven projects contributed to the safer school travel with a new learnings, especially for adult road users.

What we also observed was that parents were largely, open and willing learners. In fact, they were proud that students were showing them the way. As our program grows in scale and purpose we are witnessing that the student community can be counted upon. They are the future citizen. Going forward, it is going to be their road environment. They are the ones who aspire for better living and smart cities. They need to engage with the road safety issue so that they can solution it as town planners, engineers, architects, designers , social scientists, administrators, managers and above all, as commuters and road users.

I believe, just like generating brand awareness for products, all principles of marketing practices can be used to enable road safety learnings to get internalized by students at an early age. This includes integrated road safety campaigns, message repetition, content sessions, creative arts and even incentives and prizes to attract their attention and encourage them to become responsible road users.  With this orientation, these young road safety champions will easily take on the role as change-makers for the larger society. After all, as John Whitehead said “children are the living messages for a time we will not see”. We need to prepare them with the right content so that they can weave their own story, for increasing the collective consciousness towards creating a positive road culture around them.