Bal Swaraj - First Residential Camp for Adolescents 16-18 May 2024

Plant Swaraj early so the roots of leadership grow stronger in youth, guiding them towards both individual and collective growth.

With this vision and a shared understanding, Swaraj Shala, a unit of Vagdhara, has launched a life skills and leadership development programme for 110 adolescents from orphan, foster eligible and extremely poor families. In the remote villages of the Bhil tribal community in the two states of southern Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, these children associated with the Jan Sangthan’s of the tribal community can be at the forefront of the way forward along with the youth and parents alike.

In the Bal Swaraj Leadership Development Programme, by engaging through residential camps, children were able to focus on leadership competencies; they worked collectively, identified common challenges and developing solution-based thinking, and be involved in decision-making for equal opportunities for all by moving towards local governance through active participation in communication.

The theme of this first camp in the series of 3-day residential camp was "Me and Us." By joining the camp, the adolescent boys & girls worked to understand self, themselves and each other by getting involved in a variety of processes, games, activities, watched videos, thus these self-motivated children also started taking the responsibilities together with participation. Practicing by engaging in such processes will enhance abilities, bring about a change in oneself and start behaving by assimilates the change and learning to move forward with one's family with a meaningful purpose.

These children deserve a true childhood where they are groomed for leadership roles. It is true that when children see their capacity for leadership not as a distant dream, but as a practice that starts with what they can achieve today, they begin to conduct themselves and guide their families with relevance and purpose.