Khula Aasman Trust (KA) is a registered NGO that was founded in the year 2013. The intention is to use the power of expressive arts to bring positive change and transformation in communities.
Since then the organisation based in Maharashtra has focused its work with the incarcerated population, rescued women, children in conflict with law, senior citizens, children in the community and corporates. Recently a project was undertaken by KA in collaboration with Kshamata and UNICEF, to provide psycho-social support during the Covid-19 pandemic.
During the three months starting from October, Khula Aasman Trust covered 43 different institutions in Maharashtra reaching out to as many as 2,350 women and children in shelter homes, observation homes and rescue homes through 100 sessions.
The facilitators for the sessions were Sarita Ganesh and Tanvi Oswal. Says Sarita, “The entire experience was touching, sometimes overwhelming as we discovered how much the lockdown had affected the lives of the people in closed walls of institutions. Not leaving the shelter home for 2 years, and having no connection with the outside world seems like imprisonment? Yes, very close to that. Conflicts occur, boredom, stress, fear are easily felt. Anger seemed to be the major driving emotion for many of them.”
In the process of the sessions, they asked the participants to depict their emotions, whether at the surface or deeper and their dreams/desires. It gave an insight into their world – the need for family – especially the love for their mothers. The drawings of many of the boys in observation homes showed the impact of broken families they came from. The fathers would often be missing or depicted in hate. Adds Sarita, “The sessions offered a space to release these pent-up emotions and feelings, to share them, to bring happiness through games, movement and art and finally to understand how to cope with negative emotions and thoughts and how to transform them.”
