14 years old Ravi* shared with his social worker that the life skills session on managing peer pressure has helped him to take a stand for himself when he is with his peers and calmly make decisions when in a pressured situation. He is able to differentiate between the good and the bad and make informed choices every day.
Miracle Foundation has been implementing its life skills curriculum with children across age groups for more than a decade now and covers a range of life skills from goal setting to responsible sexual behavior to study skills to financial training. All life skills are interrelated and active learning methods like games, role play, storytelling, art activities, small group discussions, etc. are used. The practice of these life skills leads to an increased sense of competence and positive changes in behavior. The ultimate goal for our children is greater confidence and self-esteem, a healthy, positive lifestyle, and the ability to become self-sustaining citizens of the world community.
As we continue to respond to the impact of COVID and of the very recent second wave in India, we re-designed and rolled out a digital life skills curriculum for the children to be accessed remotely with digital devices. We revamped our Life Skill Education Program into “Google Classroom LSE Micro-lessons”. We have started with focusing on building two important skills of stress management and expressing emotions. To start – skills that can come in handy with everything going on around India during this difficult time. We have created a digital learning space for children who have tablets using Google Classroom. This self-guided digital space has been created for the children. Easy to understand, practical, and fun activities covering a range of topics will be shared with them each week. These activities have been designed keeping micro-learning principles in mind – short, quick, and effective. As they go through the activities, they’ll have a chance to reflect on their learning and share their thoughts with their peers.
Activities will be posted automatically weekly and children will get a notification via email when that happens. Each week, they’ll complete activities and a weekly check-in form. There will be proper & regular monitoring by Miracle. Also, teams can check the space every few days and can see what’s going on too – can comment on children’s posts, encourage them, etc.
Currently, we are piloting with 71 children who have email addresses set up and trained to be versed with Google classrooms. We provide instructions to the social workers who then walk the children through the details. Video tutorials have been made available to the children on Google Classroom as well. We expect to scale our reach as we are able to secure internet enabled tablets/devices for more children.
To learn more about the program, drop an email at safelyhome@miraclefoundation.org
