We have been accorded the platinum level of award in the Guide Star India NGO Transparency Awards 2016! We have always set high standards of accountability, transparency, and reporting for ourselves. Being accorded the Champions of GuideStar India- Platinum level award, gives us an added impetus to set new benchmarks in all that we do. Thank you for believing in us!

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Accompanied by their coach Prasanna and delegation leader Pavithra KL, the young delegates returned from France brimming with stories of memorable moments: which included playing football in an entirely different atmosphere, winning 3 of the 11 matches they played and making friends from different countries. The experience also helped them develop empathy as they interacted with young people who came from circumstances more difficult than their own lives.

They come away with a commitment to use this opportunity and encourage more girls in their communities to learn football. We would also like to take this opportunity to thank BookASmile, a charity initiative of BookMyShow and other donors for supporting these young people in pursuit of their dreams.

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There comes a time in every leader and organization’s journey when we are invited to seek new frontiers and embrace change to continue to stay relevant to our vision and in our case, our cause. That time has come now for Dream a Dream. After 16 years of proudly helming the affairs of Dream a Dream, I am delighted to announce that Suchetha Bhat will be taking over as CEO of Dream a Dream starting 2nd April 2018.

Suchetha joined Dream a Dream as a volunteer in 2007. She was a mentor to a young woman who unfortunately in due course ran away from home. The experience pushed Suchetha to reflect deeply on her role as a mentor and what she could have done differently. Delving on her experiences, Suchetha didn’t give up; albeit in 2010 chose to move into the social sector & Dream a Dream full-time to stay with her questions.

Having studied engineering and worked in the IT sector for over 9 years, Suchetha’s potential was truly unlocked at Dream a Dream. Joining a small team meant the organization needed her support in multiple areas and Suchetha jumped right into the deep end. She developed a deep understanding of our programmes, reviewed and designed curriculums and became the curriculum head and trainer in our Mentoring programme and also the newly launched Teacher Development Programme. Her depth of understanding of a young person’s transformative journey today is un-paralleled.

In the words of KS Ramanan, Chief Programme Officer at Dream a Dream, “Suchetha’s 100% commitment to young people is clearly evident in the way she applies herself to design programmes that deliver high impact, lead and mentor teams to stay the course and provide overall direction to the organization.”

Suchetha has also been an architect of the game-changing people philosophy at Dream a Dream. Based on the core values of Trust, Dignity and Accountability, the people philosophy has shaped the culture and ethos of Dream a Dream under Suchetha’s able leadership. Since its adoption in 2012, the people philosophy has brought our attrition to under 11% pa; has helped the organization develop a high-performing and deeply reflective second and third line of leadership under the idea of ‘Community of Changemakers’; and has ensured that 40% of our team today is comprised of graduates from our programme across the organization structure – from leadership to the field team. According to Vikram, another colleague, “Suchetha embodies reflective leadership.”

Suchetha has driven the scale and strategic direction of Dream a Dream as COO and also as part of the leadership team since 2012. She has helped scale the team from 23 to over 85 full-time staff; scale the impact from 10,000 young people a year to over 100,000 young people and placed Dream a Dream firmly as a thought leader and pioneer in the space of Life Skills in the country.

Her learning curve has been meteoric and she has role-modelled how one can embrace one’s true potential through sheer perseverance, self-belief, commitment to excellence and hard work.

“The way she mentors people of each programme to focus on impact at a deeper level is incredible.” says, Shrikanth.

Suchetha is a deeply reflective human being. She draws strength from a deep belief in herself and her intuition. She has helped each and every team member within Dream a Dream to expand their sense of self, look at the beauty within themselves and draw strength from their identity and stories. No one could have said it better than Ansar, “Suchetha never brought hierarchy as a wall between us and through her acceptance and deep listening has given us the strength to bring out our potential. By role-modelling in this way, she has been able to build an organization where each one is inspired to be an empathetic leader with a strong vision.”

Over the years, Suchetha has held a mirror to our fears and to our strengths. As Pavithra states, “Today Dream a Dream as an organization is confident in making a CEO transition because of the leadership and mentorship that Suchetha has demonstrated in the organization. Suchetha has practised leadership in attitude and action because of which today there is a second line of leaders emerging in the organization.”

As a life partner too, Suchetha has helped me move to a higher understanding of myself through the deeply reflective practices she has brought into our personal relationship.

In this next phase, I will continue to be a part of Dream a Dream in a new expanded role as a champion for young people in the country and supporting the advocacy and strategic partnership efforts for Dream a Dream. As we embark on this next journey with the bold vision to change the paradigm of education in our country, I feel proud and look forward to being a part of Suchetha’s team and help achieve this vision.

It will require a reflective leader to achieve this vision; a leader who values stillness in this world of speed; a leader who values silence in this world of noise; a leader who believes in nurturing people and believing in their potential. We are delighted that we found in Suchetha the leader that Dream a Dream needs and hopefully the approach to leadership that the world will come to respect and emulate.

We are delighted to welcome Suchetha Bhat as the new CEO of Dream a Dream and I invite you to support her like you have supported me all these years. Your support has helped us nurture the next leadership within Dream a Dream and we count on your continued and committed support to unlock more potential within Dream a Dream to achieve our ambitious vision for young people.

Pervin Varma, Board Member, Dream a Dream shares, “To see this leadership transition unfold in the way it has, has been a deeply rewarding experience. I believe it can be an example for our sector itself – that it is possible for founders to transition out of leadership roles and find new avenues, continue making a lasting and meaningful contribution; and for new leadership to emerge from within the organization. Suchetha and Vishal have managed this transition beautifully, confronting the often very difficult issues and simultaneously embracing the myriad new possibilities awaiting them and Dream a Dream. All this has been done with deep integrity, dignity and grace. I cannot wait to see all the new vistas that will open up for Dream a Dream in the future. My best wishes are with Suchetha and Vishal as we make this change.”

I am sure Suchetha would love to hear your congratulatory messages and good wishes. She needs your support and we invite you to write to her at suchetha@dreamadream.org.

Thank you,

With much gratitude,

Vishal Talreja

Co-founder, Dream a Dream

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Dream a Dream, a non-profit organization based in Bangalore that empowers young people from vulnerable backgrounds with critical life skills to thrive in the 21st century, today announced a grant from Omidyar Network India, the investment firm focussed on social impact. Dream a Dream develops critical life skills in young people growing up in challenging circumstances in India and helps them prepare for a fast-changing, uncertain and complex future.

“This collaboration between Dream a Dream and Omidyar Network India aspires to put the spotlight on the critical need to reimagine the purpose of education in the 21st century and to bring to the forefront the impact of adversity on first generation learners from vulnerable backgrounds. We believe that this will push the dialogue on the core purpose of education to help children from vulnerable backgrounds overcome adversity and to thrive in the 21st century using a creative life skills approach,” Dream a Dream Chief Executive Suchetha Bhat said.“We consider competencies such as critical thinking and creativity, and mindsets such as grit and empathy as integral to quality learning. Dream a Dream’s work with a wider network of partners including the government leveraging its innovation in the student learning and training programs has the potential to truly mainstream life skills in the Indian education system. By building critical skills required for the workforce of the 21st century as well as enabling individuals to contribute responsibly toward our interdependent society, Dream a Dream is helping create many meaningful lives,” said Namita Dalmia, principal, investments at Omidyar Network India.At the centre of Dream a Dream’s approach is the belief that children have the potential to overcome adversity and achieve their true potential. Currently, Dream a Dream works with 10,000 young people a year through two innovation labs – After School Life Skills Programme and Career Connect Programme. It has trained over 7000 teachers/educators impacting over 175,000 children and young people. The Happiness Curriculum designed in partnership with Delhi government has impacted nearly a million children through government partnerships. By working with the Aga Khan Foundation, Dream a Dream is also running programs in Kenya.

About Dream a Dream

Dream a Dream empowers children and young people from vulnerable backgrounds by developing their life skills to overcome adversity and flourish in the 21st century. Life Skills are defined as ‘Abilities for positive and adaptive behaviours that help Individuals deal with demands and challenges of daily living’ (Source: WHO). Established in 2000, the organization has developed a unique and award-winning Life Skills Approach that has impacted the lives of over 1 Million children and young people in India. Dream a Dream is committed to change the experience of education for every child in the country so that they have the Life Skills and social and emotional abilities needed to truly Thrive in the face of poverty and adversity. Dream a Dream works on a strong collaborative approach with local charities, corporates, volunteers, governments, media, expert consultants and a host of national and international strategic partners. For more information, visit https://staging.dreamadream.org

About Omidyar Network

Omidyar Network is a philanthropic investment firm dedicated to harnessing the power of markets to create opportunity for people to improve their lives. Established in 2004 by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and his wife Pam, the organization has committed more than $1 billion to innovative for-profit companies and non-profit organizations to catalyze economic and social change. In India, Omidyar Network focuses on helping the hundreds of millions of Indians in low-income and lower-middle-income populations, which we define as ranging from the poorest among us to the existing middle class by working across multiple areas, including: Digital Identity, Education, Emerging Tech, Financial Inclusion, Governance & Citizen Engagement, and Property Rights. To learn more, visit www.omidyar.com, and follow on Twitter @omidyarnetwork #PositiveReturns.

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Dream a Dream, a non-profit organization based in Bangalore that empowers young people from vulnerable backgrounds with critical life skills to thrive in the 21st century, today announced a grant from Echidna Giving, a private philanthropic foundation focussed on advancing girls’ education in countries with limited resources and modest education budgets. Dream a Dream develops critical life skills in young people, including 50% girls, growing up in challenging circumstances in India and helps them prepare for a fast-changing, uncertain and complex future.

“This collaboration between Dream a Dream and Echidna Giving aspires to improve the quality of education and learning in the education systems through a focus on Life Skills to help young people, especially girls, be better prepared for careers and jobs in a fast-changing world. Echidna Giving is specifically participating in a 3-year effort to expand Dream a Dream’s programmatic impact and research agenda by transferring its model to the Indian government and NGO partners.” Dream a Dream Chief Executive Suchetha Bhat said.“We are excited to support Dream a Dream’s work to influence the wider ecosystem in India in life skills education. We are especially impressed with the effort Dream a Dream has put into developing and validating a life skills assessment tool to measure improvement in life skills among disadvantaged children. It is one of the first standardized scales to measure life skills that were developed in the Global South. We at Echidna Giving believe it is important to support efforts to collaboratively build a stronger evidence base for life skills that are also deeply contextualized,” said Erin Ganju, Managing Director at Echidna Giving. At the centre of Dream a Dream’s approach is the belief that children have the potential to overcome adversity and achieve their true potential. Currently, Dream a Dream works with 10,000 young people a year through two innovation labs – After School Life Skills Programme and Career Connect Programme. It has trained over 7000 teachers/educators impacting over 175,000 children and young people. The Happiness Curriculum designed in partnership with the Delhi government has impacted nearly a million children through government partnerships. By working with the Aga Khan Foundation, Dream a Dream is also running programs in Kenya.

About Dream a Dream

Dream a Dream empowers children and young people from vulnerable backgrounds by developing their life skills to overcome adversity and flourish in the 21st century. Life Skills are defined as ‘Abilities for positive and adaptive behaviours that help Individuals deal with demands and challenges of daily living’ (Source: WHO). Established in 2000, the organization has developed a unique and award-winning Life Skills Approach that has impacted the lives of over 1 Million children and young people in India. Dream a Dream is committed to change the experience of education for every child in the country so that they have the Life Skills and social and emotional abilities needed to truly Thrive in the face of poverty and adversity. Dream a Dream works on a strong collaborative approach with local charities, corporates, volunteers, governments, media, expert consultants and a host of national and international strategic partners. For more information, visit https://staging.dreamadream.org, and follow on Twitter @dreamadreamind

About Echidna Giving

Echidna Giving is a private funder who is committed to deploying $500 to $700 million towards new horizons in girls’ education over the next 40 years, in lower-income countries where girls are most disadvantaged. Our vision is a world in which the promise of girls’ education has been delivered: girls grasp greater opportunities to learn and earn, passing on the value of education to their own children, thereby enabling better prospects for each successive generation. Echidna Giving’s role in delivering on the promise of girls’ education is two-fold: 1. To be a catalyst for high-potential accelerators: programs and initiatives to fast-track improvements in education outcomes for girls. 2. To support a robust ecosystem in girls’ education so that effective ideas can take root and thrive. To learn more, visit https://echidnagiving.org/, and follow on Twitter @EchidnaGiving.

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Dream a Dream, being one of Porticus’s partners, attended the inaugural ‘Measuring What Matters’ (MWM) Learning Partnership Convening in Kenya. The purpose of this convening was to support dialogue, learning and collaboration across the various partners of Porticus, working at different levels of the wide education systems. The main focus was on Whole Child Development (WCD) through the lens of measurement and the assessment of learning.

The convening highlighted the expertise and extensive knowledge of the Porticus partner network and highlighted the importance of fostering these connections.

GLOBAL EDUCATION LEADERS’ PARTNERSHIP 2019

The Global Education Leaders Partnership (GELP), in association with MIFRAS (Educational Entrepreneurship Incubator) and the Lautman Foundation in Israel hosted the 15th international convening of world-class education leaders, to discuss how they can work towards transforming their education systems, so that every learner develops the skills, knowledge and dispositions they need to survive and thrive in the 21st century.

Vishal Talreja was one of the world-class education leaders, at the convening and he made a case for children growing up in adversity, by saying, “There are large parts of the world, including developed countries, where there are children growing up in adversity, exposed to lack of food and nutrition, neglect, extreme poverty and displacement. When any of these circumstances are present in the lives of children, it impacts their ability to achieve developmental milestones at the right age. In the environments we’re creating for our children today, educational systems need to recognize this. Where children fail to thrive, they won’t be able to access high-quality learning environments.”

GLOBAL EDUCATION & SKILLS FORUM 2019

Vishal Talreja and Chinnapa Das travelled to Dubai on the 23rd and 24th March this year to participate at the Global Education & Skills Forum (GESF). The GESF brought together leaders from the public, private and social sectors to seek solutions to achieve education, equity and employment for all. More than 2000 delegates gathered to share, debate and shape new ways for education to transform our world.

Chinappa Das, a young person who joined Dream a Dream in 2012, was chosen to represent Dream a Dream at the GESF 2019 to address the issues in education and tackling them using 21st-century skills. Chinappa presented his inspiring social change idea – ‘Change the Narrative’ to a group of donors and investors for seed funding. His idea revolved around creating spaces for young people from vulnerable backgrounds to talk about their stories and challenges, exploring solutions as a community of changemakers.

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Currently, we work with 10,000 young people a year through our two innovation labs – After School Life Skills Programme(ASLSP) and Career Connect Programme(CCP), have trained over 7700 teachers/educators from 206 partners impacting over 192,500 children and have impacted over 1 Million children through strategic partnerships with state governments in Delhi and Jharkhand. We work on a strong collaborative approach with local charities, corporates, volunteers, governments, expert consultants and a host of national and international strategic partners.

Dream a Dream works through three key programmes, ASLSP and CCP which directly impacts young people and the Teacher Development Programme (TDP) which indirectly impacts young people through teachers. In ASLSP and CCP, we use a creative life skills approach where young people can make better choices and become more meaningfully engaged. TDP engages teachers to indirectly impact young people and is designed to nurture empathy, expand their creativity, develop listening and validation skills and the ability to share with authenticity while also learning facilitation skills.

This report represents the impact evaluation of the life skills approach implemented across all the three programmes of Dream a Dream for the year 2018-2019. The purpose of this report is to document the best practices and innovations to provide inputs and insights for national and international level policies and programmes in life skills education. Further, the purpose of the study was to provide a qualitative and quantitative assessment and analysis of the processes and results of the programme as per the programme objectives.

Major findings include: 1) All three programmes (ASLSP, CCP, TDP) showed improvement in the life skills of young people. 2) The improvement in scores was statistically significant for all three programmes. 3) Male and female participants improved in each of the five life skills measured. 4) The Last Mile Support Programme (LMSP) showed that 97.6% of the young people were meaningfully engaged. 5) Life skilling teachers through TDP helped in improving the life skills of students. Through the teachers, life skills of students have improved drastically.

Based on the evidence of the impact evaluation, it is clear that all programmes are on-track to achieve its intended results. The findings of the study indicate that the results of all intervention strategies were effective in developing and nurturing life skills among the participants.

You can read the complete report here – https://staging.dreamadream.org/reports/impactreports/ImpactReport18-19.pdf

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Dream a Dream launched a Career Guide for young people in our Career Connect Programme, a beautifully designed and illustrated book outlining over 50 potential careers that young people can choose from. The guide was recently launched at a beautifully designed event where young people shared their dreams, explored entrepreneurship as a potential career option and a teacher shared how impressed and inspired she was with the confidence and grounded-ness shown by young people at the centre

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