Centre for Youth Development & Activities (CYDA)

A COMMON VISION

Creating an enabling environment for youth to become responsible and independent adults, with a focus on promoting human rights, democratic values, accountability & transparency and the courage to speak up.

WHat THEY DO

CYDA’s Health4Change program is implemented at various schools for senior students with a view to achieving a Healthy Attitude, Healthy Mind and Healthy Behaviour.

TARANG: Educating senior students on reproductive health and gender.

WASH: Creating awareness and training around water, hygiene and sanitation withing schools, and educating children and staff to maintain the facility where toilets were set up or renovated.

Counselling: Providing individual support to senior students in academic, social and emotional needs.

CYDA guides teachers on how to create an enabling environment

TARANG empowers adolescents with the right knowledge & skills

The program employs engaging & interactive methods of learning

A safe space for students to express their concerns & doubts

CORNERSTONES

The CYDA team that goes into the schools are from similar backgrounds to the students and they operate on the principle that their team be role models of the behaviour change they are trying to promote. The team is first given the same knowledge that students would receive and once they are able to adopt these principles, they are trained on imparting that knowledge to others.

CYDA’s focus is on considerably basic factors like access to water & sanitation, the right to information and support in dealing with the challenges of adolescence. They see a tremendous impact on education and livelihoods once these needs are addressed. They also work extensively on driving policy change.

Life skills education along with better health & sanitation facilities

Awareness about cleanliness and personal hygiene

ADDING VALUE

CYDA has been supported by Bansuri Foundation since October 2014 in 6 schools across Pune, starting with the TARANG program. Bansuri helped identify the need for a counselling program to support the TARANG project and this was introduced in the second year. This was followed by training the teachers and the school leadership on the importance of counselling and how to implement it, so that they can be self-reliant in the future.

In the third year, Bansuri Foundation supporting the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, decided to focus on renovating toilet blocks that were in a poor condition and providing filtered drinking water at schools where CYDA had intervened for the WASH program.

MAKING A DIFFERENCE

100 students from 6 schools between grades 8 to 10 have been part of CYDA’s Health4Change program with Bansuri. About 66 students took individual counselling and 64 were part of group counselling sessions. It was found that students who participated in the program were able to manage their emotions better and be more assertive in conversations.

confidence level of the students and found them to be less hesitant to speak up in class. There was an improvement in their focus on academics as their ability to deal with their problems increased. Students not only overcame substance addictions and the frequency of physical fights, but there was also a reduction in abusive language as the students learnt how to deal with anxiety, stress, and phobias.