Community centres are the youth lead space where youth from different communities not only come together to learn different aspects of society but also to share their own skills and teach each other.
The objective of the centres are:
• to build an agency in young people to help them strengthen their capacities towards their own leadership and of their community.
• to help the young people develop an enhanced self-awareness, wellbeing and become confident in leading change in their family, peer, and community space.
• to help young people to identify their aspirations, goals, and career plans for their futures.
• to help young people to build essential life skills and entrepreneurial skills to map their career plans.
• to help young people to become empathetic leaders, taking action on different issues within their community.
• Communication - Engaging with conflict, empathy, and relationships with varied systemic stakeholders
Currently Rubaroo has 3 community centres in the following places :
- Youth Resource Centre in Amberpet. It is supported by United Way Hyderabad.
- Trailblazer Community Lab in Kukatpally. It is supported by Salesforce and United Way Hyderabad.
- Cyberabad Community Centre which is supported by Give2Asia and StateStreet.
It is a programme for adolescents which delivers life skills that enable them to effectively deal with demands and challenges of life. A curriculum which focuses on developing the aspects of Self-Awareness, Strengthening Interpersonal Relationships, Understanding Gender, Responsible Decision Making, Creative and Critical Thinking, Empathy, Inclusion, Stereotypes and Bullying is designed for this programme. The main objective of the programme is to bridge the gap of social and emotional skills among adolescents as these skills are as important and necessary as other subjects, such as maths, science, and reading. Rubaroo has implemented a 3-months ‘SEL’ programme in five government schools of Hyderabad between January to March 2022. A total of 16 Sessions were delivered at each school with an overall outreach of 377 students by 12 facilitators.
Rubaroo runs this programme in collaboration with YLAC (Young Leaders for Active Citizenship). The aim of the programme is to enable a platform for students to build critical thinking, explore challenging societal problems, break stereotypes and gain the skills necessary to take on leadership.
The Equality Clubs aim to enable students by:
• Equipping them with the skills to take on social leadership.
• Helping them build empathy and appreciation of their own privilege.
• Familiarising them with different types of inequalities that exist in society.
• Inspiring them to create impact .
Rubaroo looks after mobilizing schools, teacher orientation and then monitoring. We are currently implementing these clubs in Telangana, Kerala, Bangalore and Guwahati.
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) or Global Goals are a collection of 17 interlinked global goals designed to be a "blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all".
AVNI is a curriculum which has been co-created by Rubaroo and the Premia Academy with the purpose to bring the Sustainable Development Goals closer to students from Grade 1 to Grade 8.The aim of the programme is to imbibe the values and principles of the SDG goals right from a young age.
The curriculum is also divided into 5 Modules which cover the 17 SDGs as following:
• Health and WellBeing.
• Equality.
• Environment.
• Economy.
• Policy and Strategy.
‘Circle of Stories’ is a specially designed programme for adolescents to provide them with an opportunity to have fun, participate in out-bound adventure by experiencing a rural community, while living in that space to learn about a completely different lifestyle and reality.
This exposure enables them to question and analyse many aspects of themselves; What are my choices? What are my values? What is my role as a citizen of any community that I may be a part of [even friends and family]? What are my opinions influenced by? What do I know about friendships and relationships? What are the issues I’m passionate about?
As part of this immersive process, they learn about themselves, their leadership styles, and what it means to work with others.
Rubaroo In-turn-ship is a programme designed to facilitate an intensive learning journey for youth and aims to not only challenge their comfort zone but simultaneously provides them an opportunity to learn about themselves and social issues all around them.
There are three phases to this in-turn-ship, which are as follows :
1. The Orientation Camp (OC) :
Participants begin this journey with a 4-6 day orientation camp in partnership with a grassroots organization in Telangana or Andhra Pradesh, to prepare them for the journey ahead. The OC community is a different setting, and the team of Rubaroo holds varied sessions to explore issues of stereotypes, identities, sustainable development, and the need to be open to learning.
2. In-turn-ship placement:
As part of the programme, we place volunteers for a period of 4-6 weeks with grass-root level organizations across India. This exposure component is a reflection of our belief in experiential learning as one of the best ways of learning, which allows individuals to form their own opinions, differentiate facts from fiction, and at the same time, provides the host organization with a helping hand on different projects through specific skills of the volunteer.
3. Debriefing:
Post their exposures the volunteers are part of a debrief exercise to share their experiences and the learning that they may have gained, to put them into action for the future.
"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." ~ Thomas Alva Edison
.
Safarnama as the name suggests is a journey especially designed for young people where they engage with various components of leadership, self-facilitation and facilitation on the whole. It encourages, recognizes, and supports young people specially in the communities Rubaroo works to achieve their potential to lead social change initiatives.
This journey is envisaged as one that would explore the construction of identities – others as well as of the self, positively deal with conflicts, become more system aware and learn how to mobilize, inspire others and amplify their impact.
This programme is for teachers and parents. They are customized interventions designed in collaboration with school to support them in nurturing the holistic development of young people. These processes also support the adult in rediscovering their own journey to initiate greater self-awareness and strengthen their relationships with young people.
These programmes are all co-designed in partnership with schools - understanding their needs, availability and investment. It mainly looks at inducting newly recruited teachers at the beginning of an academic calendar. Team building, vision building and alignment, and classroom management are some of the themes that are covered.