“For the courage to speak without fear,” said one of the students after carefully picking out the black cloth from a many-hued cluster of fabrics. The young students from Vidyasagar Evening College stood in a circle and hand-picked the colours that best represented their learning from the workshop.
Each, confident and self-assured, selected shades of blue, black, orange, yellow and green to express the need for courage, hope, determination, energy, confidence, resilience, and awareness in building a powerful voice to speak about Incest and Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) within their community.
RAHI Foundation held the Youth Programme at the Vidyasagar Evening College on the 24th and 28th of February, 2018, as part of the students’ volunteering term for the National Service Scheme, a youth programme under the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports.
The workshop, with the support of the RAHI facilitator, opened up discussions around RAHI's work with women survivors of CSA, the differentiation between the terms 'victim' and 'survivor', the long-term impact on a survivor, and the process of support and recovery.
It concluded with an outreach programme with posters and flyers designed on CSA as part of the students' commitment to social action.