A Million Me’s1

Blending Spectrum is a project of The YP Foundation that connects urban young people through a peer-to peer community interaction with street and slum children, with the aim of increasing sensitivity between street and slum children and the urban youth. Blending Spectrum provides healthcare and non-formal education (including Life Skills Based Education), building the potential of children with limited access to opportunities.

The Blending Spectrum Management Team, or the BSMT, is the core group of 5 young staff members who execute and develop the project’s goals on 2 locations in Delhi. The project was founded by 17-year-old Manka Bajaj in 2006 and has also been run by Rohanjit Chaudhry since. Aditi Kaul, a 3rd year student at Delhi University, currently heads the BSMT.

At a recent training for peer educators and volunteers working on location, Rohanjit wrote a poem for the group, which summed up his 3-year journey working as a staff member at The YP Foundation.

Its funny how we spend, each day of our lives,
From morning till dusk, just covering our eyes.
I wake up each morning, with breakfast and tea,
Spend my day learning; yet there’s nothing I can see.

So day after day, my life just goes on,
From college and shopping, to partying till dawn,
The question to ask though, for both you and me
Is there more that I can do, something else I can be?

I crib and I whine, at the dirt and the muck,
I blame and complain, for all my ill timed bad luck,
At the buildings and the traffic, at people and what they wear,
I see the wrong and the hurt, but I still don’t care.

But then I woke up today, and opened my eyes,
And gave myself the chance, to see and reprieve,
To look at the world around, and feel all the pain,
To smell the reality, its true color and shame.

Fresh out of school, so then I decided,
To do something different, and be un-abided,
To take up a stand, and hold my own stance,
To make that difference, and make this my chance.

I read and I searched, for places I could find,
That would help build and grow, ideas like mine,
And it was in Def Col I found myself, at the second right in Block D
It was just something so different, they called it YP.

And so it began, with us at this time,
Starting at Nizamuddin, with kids included we were nine.
We played games and had fun, still unaware were we,
Of the difference we can make, of the change we can be.

One location became three, and the days became four,
The ideas kept coming, and people there were more,
And the base it became, with the young people at its fulcrum,
The work we do today, we called it Blending Spectrum.

The years went on, and the movement kept building,
We focused on two projects, their programs just kindling,
And from the founder Manka, to Rohanjit and then Aditi,
Came the nervy steel, the all girl BSMT!

So after hours of work, all the madness and mistakes,
From all our efforts and learning’s, a step forward we did take,
From formal to informal, many manuals we did see,
The words I we have said far too many times – the LSC.

And that brings us to today. To the way things are now,
With many milestones to reach, still unsure we are how,
But we try to make that change, with that passion and persistence,
Because every you make a million me’s, and together we make a difference.

Rohanjit Chaudhry

The project works in two locations at the Nizamuddin Basti and at the Sarai Hostel (with partner Aman Biradari) in South and North Delhi respectively. Bending Spectrum currently supports over 110 children and works with 30 volunteers. In the past year, we have incorporated 60 children into mainstream education by equipping them with basic knowledge of math and English. Blending Spectrum is supported by the Global Fund for Children along with individual donors based across India.

Blending Spectrum designs and implements a Life Skills Curriculum (LSC), that incorporate providing formal as well as non-formal education to children. These include the essential skills of Communication and Inter Personal Learning, Decision Making and Critical Thinking as well as Coping and Self Management. The project also provides basic hygiene education and is in the process of developing a first aid healthcare response with the community at the Nizamuddin Basti in South Delhi.