Written by Ishita Chaudhry for Music Basti, featured at musicbasti.org

Six years ago, I met a young lady over a cup of coffee. A few features of that meeting stand out in my mind. It was early evening; the lady in question was meticulous, interested, with a cool reserve and friendly interest in exploring not just what was, but the possibilities of what could be. Her notebook, stands out in my mind, for no particular reason, other than the fact that I had nothing to write in and wasn’t quite sure what my answers were going to be, to some serious questions about what The YP Foundation was and how we could work together.

But if you know Faith Gonsalves like I have, the questions are always specific. A blend of curiosity mixed with intent, pure purpose, genuine passion and the seriousness of ability in a conversation that will always challenge you to think and then think again. The stakes are always higher with some people when you work, because they raise the bar, by virtue of how they think the picture can be re-crafted to begin with. They bring a new kind of challenge to the work that you do, force you to move outside your comfort box. They help you grow, in immense outspoken, quiet ways.

Close to nine years of working with more than five hundred young people, in the staffing structure of an organization like TYPF that has worked with over five thousand young people over the past nine years, sometimes it is hard to remember each and every contribution made without needing to peer down the books of memory lane.

Yet sometimes, it isn’t hard to remember at all, for people’s presence is marked so clearly by their contributions, their inimitable footprints in the sand.

I’ve had the pleasure of seeing Faith grow over the past five years. From the moments of having her with us at The YP Foundation as our Administrative Coordinator, to seeing her work as a Peer Educator on a project that addressed understanding the Indian Education System to taking flight with her own editorial venture The Bridge on ‘Understanding Afghanistan’. At TYPF, Faith never lacked initiative, passion or drive. Somewhere, we also began talking about the fact that she felt that what she was doing wasn’t enough. She felt more, I think, for more and the current picture was incomplete, inconsistent, it needed exploration, challenging and possibly, so did she.

We had some strong turbulent times working together. There is an irrevocable, irreversible bond you create with someone when you build with them, it’s completely addictive, an intense, alive, reactive, explosive process and a big part of why I love the work that I do. Plentiful moments where we agreed and many where we totally disagreed, how she thought systems should come together and what I thought made people tick. What was the most fascinating to me in the disagreements was the manner in which they were dealt with. With Faith, there is no walking away, its confrontational, real, in the most critical ways possible. She gave the work a certain dignity, which it possibly never had before. The Administrative Division of the organization went from being the back-end of an elaborate event mast to being the human resources arcade of how people began to connect and build the energies of social change. This is one of her most critical contributions to The YP Foundation, it fundamentally changed the way we value how we build our work and what sustains the same.

Why am I writing paragraphs describing the girl I have seen grow tremendously? Because I think transitions are important. The changes they mark in journeys are critical. To the kind of people we are, who we become and that directly filters into what we do and create. To say that I am proud of Faith and what she does is an understatement. Like many young people who came before her at The YP Foundation and many who are yet to, she made a series of transitions, for many these are fleeting, for others more permanent. The ones who will not sit idle on what burns them, it is inspiring to watch them create.

The machine of The YP Foundation, I would hope, is oiled to push your thoughts, help you meet people, discover information, resources and above all, light a fire of discontent. Something you could do better, challenge, change and most importantly, the process of internalization, of challenging the ideas of empowerment, equity, justice and the vision of promoting, protecting and advancing young people’s human rights. The organization supports and enables young people to create their own programmes and influence policy, working in the areas of gender, sexuality, HIV/AIDS, education, health, life skills, film and literature, the arts and governance. The twin objective is to increase the leadership skill set and ability of each young person we work with by challenging and developing feminist values and ideology that encourages increasing access to informed decisions, inclusion, gender equality amongst others and understanding the full body of human rights.

How do you understand if one or five years of working with a young person have made a difference to their minds, in a way where they will be inspired enough to challenge the mould you offered them in and do something wildly, unexpectedly brilliant with it? You wait. And as with the many generations of nine years of young people who pass through this wheel of time with many commonalities, often-dual generalists, you notice with alacrity, the people for whom this step has merely been the beginning.

When Faith first spoke to me about starting Music Basti, it seemed a spectacular fit. Not just to challenge the conception of what the ‘needs’ of out of school underprivileged young people are. I’m consistently tired of boxing poverty with the implication that there is never a desire within a child to move beyond the basic necessities of food, clothing and shelter and that every programme that addresses the rights of the child must only look at one of the aforementioned three. Rights of course, particularly, sexual and reproductive health and rights, are a mysterious aspect of a dimly lit future. The conception of holistic learning is limited, both in principle and in application. The lens of child, adolescence and young adulthood are not as blurred into each other as they often should be and children are infantilized, puritanical representations of childhood innocence, sans desire, sans rights, or certainly the ability to craft an independent identity for themselves. The idea of Music Basti, a programme that would give children agency, appealed to me immensely.

Further, the gauntlet thrown to a different economic and cultural agenda, a challenge made to the assumptions within the arts of the classist structures they often belong in and who are they are made accessible for. An analogy could be made to three critical habits of an evolving movement, the first, of questioning and reclaiming the status quo. The second where there is developing diverse leadership and sharing power, and three, creating self-sustaining movements that focus on substantive change.

Photo : Shiv Ahuja – The Blending Spectrum Festival: Celebrating Potential. A concert by The YP Foundation and Music Basti, featuring artists with  children we have worked with from the Uma Pandey Rainbow Home for Children, Aman Biradari. India Habitat Center, 2009.

The programme has clear elements of all three. Music Basti does not assume that children would like to learn, but rather works with them on defining a common learning goal and works to achieve that target with their stakeholders, rather than for them. The team brings together a diverse group of passionate volunteers that include the home staff of our partner Aman Biradari, working across three of their homes for children, Khushi, Ummeed and Kilkari. The level and definitive sense of skill and change comes from the children, who hold Faith and her team accountable for the highs and lows of learning and working together, in a space where the learner and learnee are equal stakeholders, positioning the arts as a medium for the very same equality and perhaps, equity.

In the ways that The YP Foundation could have supported the genesis of Music Basti, has served to bring both organizations together over the past years. Our doors and our hearts will remain open to them and we have watched them grow over the past two years with deep pride.

In a recent conversation in the Philippines, at a regional youth activists meeting, young people from India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Philippines, Nigeria were describing how very necessary it was, for the youth movement to not just retain it’s identity based on the hierarchies of age and I would agree. The space to build in the youth movement is an inclusive call, for a common dialogue between diversities that claim multiple identities. We are young, that is but one part, of being part of movements that claim disability, feminist, living with HIV, LGBTIQ, sex work, having a religious identity, or maybe not, the list is endless. The highlighted underbelly was that in addition to building a vibrant and inclusive movement, there is need to do more than simply getting young people to the table, there is a need to empower them with information and negotiation skills so that they can make the most of being there.

Our work is interconnected, circular, and then, not so much. In what we do at The YP Foundation, in how Music Basti raises that bar, in how Faith started began us and how we learn from the work she does with children today. To think, of how this movement is enriched, of how the complex fabric of social change is deepened and the multiplicity of building blocks that stretch another year, another layer, another floor, pushing the aspiration level higher.

Photo : Shiv Ahuja – Peer Educators and Staff Members from Blending Spectrum at The YP Foundation, a programme that increases urban street and slum children’s access to life skills, education and health in the NCR.

Faith’s passion is faultless and her vision is absolutely beautiful. A world where children have equity, in the most powerful way and can express themselves as easily in art, as they can in life. Music Basti is a commitment to how children can use the arts to learn and be agents and masters of their own journeys of change and learning. They are living proof that nine years of hard work is not enough and is perhaps just the beginning, but that the journey is far from thankless, not as lonely as it seems and above all, not without the real ability to create honest to goodness change, working in solidarity with fairly spectacular people who make it more than worth it

I continue to think of The YP Foundation as an organization in the present tense, and not really a figment of the past. I think it holds relevance to me personally, and certainly to my work today. I can say the same for many others whom I have known, worked with and interacted with over the course of my association with the organization.

I remember my first meeting at Tarini Barat’s house over 4 years ago, with team facilitator Harsh Malhotra, both of whom now alumni of the organization, and also dear friends today. To me this is the true relevance of TYPF – it creates lasting relationships and relevant situations for young people to converge and converse, and to create conventional, and sometimes exceptionally unconventional change.

I never believe in pivotal turning points in time, an “aha” moment – they is illusory. One of the key values I learnt during my time working with TYPF as a team member and staff member was perseverance. I worked in the Facilitative Branch (project on the Indian Education System), and as the Administrative Coordinator (2007-2008) with a host of projects. Subsequently to leaving the staff team, in 2008 I worked on another project of which I am very proud – a cultural exchange project with Afghan students in Delhi through film, art, literature and dialogue. TYPF gave me 100% freedom and creativity to source, compile and edit and design a 180-page magazine featuring work on the issue of “Understanding Afghanistan Today”. I can’t think of any other organization that would do that!

I never fancied myself a management oriented person (most of the time I still don’t!), but that experience though challenging, really helped me understand what goes into creating and sustaining development work, particularly in an urban setting, which is volunteer oriented. Though only with research, practice and experience have I really learnt what volunteer management, project management or program development are – I cannot honestly say I would have had the confidence to move out of TYPF and begin Music Basti. I owe the staff team and projects at TYPF for their trust in and encouragement to me.

By mid 2008, I had realized that I wanted to go back to music, but to also carry forward a social conscience, which was growing within me, which still is. Writing now, two years hence I realize that I have learnt so much, yet so little since that time. The struggles become easier in some respects, and harder in others. Most people will scoff at this reference, “We’re never gonna win the world, we’re never gonna stop the war, we’re never gonna beat this, if belief is what we’re fighting for. What puts a hundred thousand children in the sand? Belief can” (John Mayer, “Belief”)

I find myself confronted constantly with the dilemma of not knowing what is enough, when to stop. I started Music Basti as a collective – to collaborate and create music to make a difference and to change people’s lives. Is it enough? Truthfully, sometimes even I really don’t think so. But it changes people’s lives – and that is what matters, and continues to matter.

In 2008 when Music Basti began implementing workshops with the “Dil Se” Campaign, Aman Biradari along with many key artistes, musicians and mentors, it made a difference to my life, and to the attitudes of everyone we worked with. It unraveled a world often unvisited by us; it triggered conversation, laughter, tears and most importantly lasting relationships. TYPF played a critical role in assisting Music Basti to launch its program, through infrastructural support, planning assistance and volunteer help. Music Basti’s first public program at India Habitat Center in November 2008 was co-hosted with TYPF – which was a showcase of a documentary film about the pilot project Music Basti, a concert by supporting band Advaita and a photography exhibition documenting music- workshops by Shiv Ahuja.

With the completion of many successful projects in 2008-2009, I graduated in 2009 and have been working full time with Integrated Development Education Association, of which Music Basti is a part. The program has scaled up its activities; outreach and most significantly, broadened its vision. TYPF has been a constant actor and support in this process, along with many other organizations and institutions who have joined in to support Music Basti including Aman Biradari, Bridge Music Academy, EFICOR, Gibson Foundation, Project Ahimsa, Furtados Music India among others. Music Basti was selected for the Change Looms (DAC program) in July 2009 (Pravah and Ashoka).

What encourages me is the process we believe in – to give children voices where they have had none, to give our team of volunteers and musicians an engaging and distinctive musical opportunity and to promote the shared vision of these voices. I believe strongly that children’s voices need to be heard – that they have important things to say. There are many ways to listen to these voices and music is one.

Music has the unique ability to transcend differences and to promote cooperation, positivity in the group and self, laughter and enthusiasm. The right to expression exists on the premise that participation and inclusivity exist, which unfortunately they often do not, particularly for children who are marginalized from society or subjugated by it.
An example of a project Music Basti is currently doing in July 2010 Music Basti is doing a project with UK based producer Ian Wallman, with Andrew Dubber and Jez Collins who are members of the Interactive Cultures Research Unit and are behind the Music As Culture project, to record an album of children’s songs, performed by children affected by poverty, homelessness and abuse. The album will be released online to showcase the change music effects in these children’s lives through music.

This piece will never be a cohesive one. Its timeline swings back and forth to reveal an outstanding relationship that is important to me personally and professionally. I still value my commitment to TYPF in the time and capacity I can offer, and work with assisting their projects and teams when possible. TYPF and its Founder, Ishita Chaudhry have consistently supported my programs, events and mission from the inception of Music Basti. I admire organizations that are carried by individuals with a vision and a perspective for change, and those who are armed with perseverance, because this work is far more often not easy than it is effortless – TYPF is one such organization.

An Evening of Music!

The YP Foundation in collaboration with The Kri Foundation present an evening of music featuring Members of The Texas (TPSMEA) All-State Choir, Chayan Adhikari (Advaita), Adhir Ghosh (Five8), Faith Gonsalves and Ishita Chaudhry (Social Entrepreneurs and Singers), Dharna Noor (Western Classical and Folk), Gangotri (Indian Folk) & Cobbled Street (Funk Jazz).

Date: 5th August
Time: 7 pm
Venue: India Habitat Centre, Lodhi Road.

For any queries please contact +91 9910337160 / +91 9811073010

We look forward to seeing you there!

~ Entry is Free. Bring your friends! ~

Music Basti
in association with
Bridge Music Academy
presents

A concert featuring

Dr Madan Gopal Singh and group (sufi folk)
with
Adil & Vasundhara (RnB and jazz)
& a special performance by
The Yale Gospel Choir (part of their Spring India 2010 tour)

An evening of diverse musical artistes coming together to support awareness about child rights.

Date: 10th March, 2010
Time: 7pm onwards
Venue: Amphitheater, India Habitat Center, Lodhi Road, New Delhi
Contact: musicbasti@gmail.com / +91 9818453347
www.musicbasti.org

Music Basti is supported by
The YP Foundation
EFICOR
Bridge Music Academy
Aman Biradari
American Center
Furtados Music India
Gibson
and others

Poster Design by: Noel Braganza

_______________________________
ABOUT MUSIC BASTI
Music Basti’ began in 2008 to work with and empower street children through music. The program is currently working with 200 children in Delhi with organization Aman Bidarari and The YP Foundation. It is working to develop a music program that teaches basic music education, coupled with human rights education and life skills. It focuses on helping the children to develop self- identity, value orientation and attitudes. Alongside this, it endeavors to join together community needs of children at risk, particularly street children, with the efforts of the music community.

Music Basti is run by IDEA (Integrated Development Education Association), and supported by The YP Foundation. It works with Aman Biradari, and Bridge Music Academy. Music Basti was selected for the Change Looms development and assessment program in July 2009 (Pravah and Ashoka) and Vikalp: Searching for Alternates (UNESCO, UNFPA and The YP Foundation.). The project combines professionals and student volunteers and musicians. It aims to develop a collaborative and positive relationship between the music community, individuals and institutions, and through them raise awareness about the issue of child rights, and the use of the arts, particularly music to create this awareness.

Besides the insanity that’s taken over (someone should really put up some of the e-mails circulating within staff, the not-so-inappropriate ones), and the fact that the concert is 3 minutes before the exams start, YAY! And we finally have a website to publicize it on! Hee hee ..

As for V.O.I.C.E.S., we’re the School Project of the YP Foundation. We go into schools across the NCR and conduct FUN (yes, they’re fun!), interactive, facilitative Life Skills workshops on pre-identified themes (such as Peer Influence, Substance Use, Body Esteem, etc.). The idea being, to create a non-judgmental, open and interactive space for teenagers to discuss anything and everything (well, almost) pertinent to their lives. Our 10-year World Peace Goal? (Or World Peach Goal, as Maitreyi likes to put it). That School Students are able to effectively deal with the challenges of every day life.

After what feels like 45 years of research, we’ve finally arrived at a 3-part workshop model, which hopefully can be adapted and used as the VOICES model for some years to come. Ooh and, we’ve finally printed our Manual! YAY!!

And we have an awesome team of 13 people from colleges around Delhi, that all worked on the Manual BTW! Besides this, we’re looking at working with some other organizations, as well as using different mediums (besides the conventional workshop model) to engage with schools whilst the team is in and out for exams in December and January.

We’re at the 6th of December (haha, the delusional idea I had of starting studying on the 1st), and everything looks awesome! We’re pretty much sold out, which is always a good thing. And I’m sure it’s going to go off great! Really looking forward to it

Just read Angarika’s post and clearly the team has been working oh-so-hard and are pretty much losing their minds

AND finally we are doing a fundraiser! Its so cool to think that we will have a concert and actually walk away with some money as opposed to having no money to pay the band,printers etc and dealing with the repercussions next year.

Also I just read Ila’s post and now i’m under pressure to write a decent and ENTHUSIASTIC blog. I really didn’t know this could be so stressful! {smirk}

The website is UP and its so so so cool. I can actually say the sentence- “why don’t you go look at our WEBSITE, all the information you need is up there”!! all hail Gaurav Vaz and everyone else who worked on it!

As for blending spectrum we have our lesson plans for December and Jan ready and have also come up with health care lesson plans which will hopefully be approved SOON. We are hopefully going to paint sarai. YES. ACTUALLY PAINT THE ENTIRE PLACE. and everyone on staff is invited to get down and dirty with us and the kids.   (still have to talk to Aman Biradari though). Blending spectrum is also working on the Nutrition challenge which is driving Pattie and Chandini up the wall! ALSO WE HAVE NEW VOLUNTEERS! whoopee! Volunteers and money make people in the YP very very happy.

So all in all i’m really excited about the event!The performers and the MONEY that we will hopefully make!! I am sure it will be really awesome! looking forward to it!

So the website is finally up! And my, is it kick arse! Kudos Gaurav!

Which brings us to the point where I’ve been asked to write 300 words on what I’m doing right now. Tough one, that.

My name is Ila Reddy and I currently head The Right to Information Branch at The YP Foundation.  There’s so much happening around here, I can’t decide where to start!

We work on the broad issues of governance and accountability- with special focus on the Right to Information Act this year. We do workshops in colleges to create awareness amongst young college students about the Act, while equipping them with the tools to utilize it as a medium of accountability from public authorities.  Our workshop series start from the 11th of December at North Campus, Delhi University, so my team of 15 volunteers are currently in training- gearing up for the insanely busy month ahead!
Like starting with workshops just a day after our first ever fundraiser isn’t  scary enough, we’re also partnering with Swechha, UNV, UNDP and others on the International Volunteer Day Yamuna clean-up at the banks of the Yamuna on the 5th of December.  Add to that juggling between college, assignments, team trainings, staff meetings, a bad cold, attempts at fund raising, writing scary proposals and doing what I’m doing right now- that pretty much sums it up.

By the look of it, preparations for the fundraiser concert seem to be going really really well! As Angarika mentioned, ticket sales are on the rise and logistically also everything seems to be going great! Watching the Silhouette and Admin teams (not to mention a million other people!) put in so much back-breaking hard work, I KNOW the event is going to be a major success! All the best guys!

The countdown has begun! 11 days to our first fundraiser!

Its so much easier being part of the audience. One gets to amble in, be ushered to a seat, kick back and groove to the music. The organisers on the other hand, running back and forth like plucked chickens.

We finalized our design – the posters look lovely! Thank you Gunjan! I’m not entirely sure how were going to resize the prints in order to mount flexes though. Err. Oh and our website is up! (which is how you’re reading this).

It took 93840985 years (Chaudhry is techincally challenged) but I think it was worth all the waiting. Thank you Gaurav! So many people to thank for their support.

We’re trying to wrap our heads around production right now – Stage set up, light, sound, ushering, registration tables – the whole works. You’d think we’d be more organised seeing as we’ve been doing this for nearly 7 years now. But no, the last minute frantic dashing around is a staple feature every time. Its part of the fun though.

Our ticket sales are going through the roof! Which is strange because we haven’t started our publicity yet..hm. Noones complaining though, maybe we’ll finally get salaries! My life consists of running from one meeting to the other. Its begining to weigh heavy on my wallet and college attendance. The sound vendor, car rental, Kishan ji at the Ashoka, oh crap I just realised I haven’t set that meeting up.

Purple remains in an intergral part of the entire event as we try and bring it all together. Its doubly difficult without having her around to lighten the tension with a wholly inappropriate joke, or insert a logo onto the poster last minute, vowing not to do it the next time around “no poster for your next event” etc etc, knowing full well, she’d be doing it again the next night. Its just how she was, patient and gracious with all our tardy behaviour. The concert is a dedication to her, and her spirit, and we hope you all turn up to share that moment with us.

I’m over Chaudhry’s word limit. Sorry mom. More soon! Wish us luck!

-Angarika

There are 15 days to go for the first fundraiser we have ever put together and what a way to start! Laura Marling and Mumford and Sons on their first trip to India!

It will be a show like no other and what better way to do it than to support the young kids of Delhi actually doing something about things they are passionate about!

We are hard at work putting the whole thing together, we just hope you guys have marked your calendars and will turn up on the 10th of December with all your friends and support our cause when you go out and have fun!