Adoptee - Case Studies
Dream a Dream
Namrata Agarwal
Circa 1999. A bunch of 12 people from Bangalore, India got together with a simple thought “Let’s do something !”. One dream, then another, faster, bigger…an idea that ballooned into a hub of positive energy. This was the birth of Dream A Dream.
Today, Dream A Dream is a registered charitable trust in India working to empower children by developing life skills and at the same time sensitizing the community through active volunteering leading to a non-discriminatory society where unique differences are appreciated.
While basic needs of children like food, clothing, shelter and education are met by many charities this often does not lead to successful integration of children into the mainstream. Youth who are unable to face the challenges of an independent life are at risk of falling back into a vicious cycle of life on the streets.
The need for empowering children led Dream A Dream to focus on developing Life Skills. Life Skills are fundamental to child/youth development and to their successful transition into adulthood and becoming fully productive members of the society.
Life Skills development at Dream A Dream is fostered through a variety of weekly programs which allow children to develop:
• Interpersonal skills including teamwork, communications, negotiation and stress management skills
• Cognitive skills such as decision making, problem solving and critical thinking
• Along with creativity, confidence and self awareness and a passion for learning.
Dream A Dream currently works with over 750 vulnerable children from the age of 6-18. These children are deemed vulnerable as they may be orphans, street children, or other children from the slum community.
We run 10 programs today; each designed to build multiple life skills and each child progresses through these programs as per his age, interest and aptitude.
At Dream A Dream, we also believe for any positive impact to happen in our society, active engagement of the community is critical. The way we chose to accomplish this is by involving volunteers from all walks of life and hence volunteering is ingrained in our vision statement.
Today we work with over 700 community volunteers. They not only build and run programs with children, but also contribute to various areas like raising awareness about the organization, raising funds, helping in internal processes, building IT systems, training Dream A Dream staff, writing newsletters, organizing events, helping in organization building and many more.
Added to volunteers that we draw from the local community, international volunteers also contribute to a large extent. Every year we host 10-15 volunteers, primarily from the UK who spend anywhere between 3-12 months volunteering at Dream A Dream. Over the years, the learning of children from them has been invaluable. Each volunteer brings with him/her an abundance of knowledge on various areas like arts and sports and conduct sessions every day with the children. Surprisingly, language has never been a barrier for these volunteers to run enriching lessons or for the children to run with joy every time they see them entering the gates!
While interest in volunteering with projects that directly deal with target community are on the rise, there are other emerging trends. A large number of volunteers express interest in using their skills to help build capacity of non profits – an area that requires tremendous support. The lack of resources, often financial, restrict the capability of non profits to invest in building capacities in the areas of strategic planning, management information systems, IT tools and processes, training needs etc. These are essential to ensure the long-term sustainability of any organization.
At Dream A Dream, we have had many occasions where volunteers have contributed in these areas. We have had Human Resources professionals help train the Dream A Dream staff on interpersonal skills and management professionals have helped us with business case documents, research documents, planning exercises and many more.
Keeping in tune with this trend and to leverage the growing interest among corporate houses, Dream A Dream embarked on a new relationship with Adopt A Business UK to explore the opportunities of having senior managers from leading firms in the UK to volunteer their time and skills with organization development.
The first step was taken in October 2007. While Dream A Dream had conducted a strategic review, there was a need to relook at the plans and define concise goals for the next three years. The assignee for this project was James Holroyd, a senior manager from HBOS UK. The one month that James volunteered brought in tremendous focus to the work at Dream A Dream. Not only did he succeed in defining the three year goals but also helped us put in place actions to be undertaken to achieve them. Today, Dream A Dream follows the plan set then and chooses this as the way to go forward in the next three years. James also defined the next steps for Dream A Dream where the need for a second assignee came into the picture.
sets and requirement. We welcomed our second assignee - Hugh Jackson, from Ernst and Young, who recently completed a month-long volunteer posting with Dream A Dream. His area of work was Information Management Systems. Coming at a crucial time (i.e. start of a financial year), Hugh’s work defined critical data requirements across the organization. Not only did he define overall requirements but also contributed to the possible tools and technology that were simple and cost effective.
All in all, the two assignees have brought out a shift in thinking and execution at Dream A Dream. While it has been an invaluable experience for us, this was a learning journey for assignees as well –from laughing and sharing experiences with the children to exploring the culturally diverse India.
For an assignment to be mutually beneficial, it is imperative that the charity has a clear understanding of its requirements, deliverables and outcomes that can measure the success of the project. Sourcing a person who matches the requirement – not only in terms of skills, but their fit into the organizational culture and working style is equally essential.
In the long run, it is important for charities to have a strong organizational foundation that is steeped not only in values and beliefs but sound organizational systems that help in proper planning, executing, and accurate measurement of impact, reporting and accountability.
It calls for professionals to lend their expertise and do their bit to build an organization that can steadily take on more to make a difference to millions of lives across the world.
To know more about Dream A Dream, an organization that is bringing smiles to hundreds of children in Bangalore - India, log onto www.dreamadream.org.
Namrata Agarwal,
Operations Manager, Dream A Dream
Namrata works with Dream A Dream. Prior to this, she worked with a leading IT company for over five years before deciding to shift careers to combine her skills and experience to pursue her passion and positively impact the society through Dream A Dream.