The A! Academy Experience

Soil for Life site visit in Cape Town

As part of the exchange, the Pravah volunteers had an opportunity to work with the A! Academy which is a free e-learning platform and a blended learning environment for young people to access capacity building opportunities and resources. Part of the scope for the Pravah volunteers was for them to be involved in the content development processes for the A! Academy courses. This primarily entailed conducting research for some of the programmes with a pointed focus on leadership and mental health.

Reflecting on this experience Executive Director of the ACTIVATE! Academy Chris says, “The Pravah volunteers used their own life experiences to interrogate some of the e-learning frameworks, and they attached projects to the material. Like they would attend an event on gender-based violence or youth development and film it or engage in conversations about it then add that to the online material. The volunteers had some breakthroughs with the research they were doing. There were some deep insights about the nature of

leadership learning and what leadership was all about. They came up with some big ideas around interconnectedness, social and emotional learning,” he says. “We looked at leading others and also found very rich leadership research. How to lead others through inspirational stories and case studies where the same problem is dealt with in different countries,”

Pravah volunteer, Fouziya Tehzeeb says, “At the Academy I was really interested in designing a module on how to find leadership in yourself, rather than looking for someone to lead. Redefining leadership and redefining leaders in your life. It shouldn’t be a big shot person, leaders can be in our own community and I can also be a leader. Leaders have lots of qualities that I may have, yet I don’t see myself as a leader. Being in a different setting requires people to be more open and tolerant to new ideas, different opinions and different people. That is the starting point to seeing yourself as a leader. Getting to know people differently helps us develop skills like empathy. I also have a lot of respect for the way Chris works. He gave us a small assignment on leadership to work on. I was thinking and observing how he was leading and also giving us the opportunity to lead. Leaders take you along and sometimes they have to step back. It was such an enriching experience.”

Pravah volunteer, Ajay Kumar, who runs Teach for Green (an educational sustainability organization in India) reflected on his experience of meeting with and learning from similar organisations in Cape Town. “I met with Soil for Life in Cape Town and engaged with

various individuals that I learned from about sustainability, markets, hosting community meetings and gardens. There are many similar kinds of projects happening in Cape Town and Delhi, like solar home lighting systems, kitchen gardens and

community gardens. It was very interesting.” he said.

“I further learnt how Soil for Life have set up their own campus where they have examples of soil and of building community relations with nature. I saw how ACTIVATE! is helping the young generation with training programmes and their partnership with Soil for Life. It was good exposure for me. I got to learn more about ACTIVATE!’s different entrepreneurial programmes

where they train young people to be social entrepreneurs and help them by providing resources,” he added.

The exchange programme also was an opportunity for participants to experience the world from the lens of someone from a different background. Expounding further on this, ACTIVATE! Academy Head of Content, Lauren Daniels says “Ultimately these exchange

programmes have the power to change your mind-set. It takes you through quite a transformative experience. You think about things in your country that could be different and those things that work very well. It shifts your own perspective when you see people doing things differently under their own circumstances.”

Nivedita Soni, Director at Pravah says, “A lot of young people don’t have the opportunity to engage with anything that’s

different to them. You can go through life living with the same community, culture, class, caste, economy and don’t really have any experience of anything diverse. Then you do not have the ability to empathise or include anyone different to you, or even to recognise social issues affecting others. The exchange allows them to see a much larger picture than what they’re experiencing in their lives,”

“It’s not just about seeing a different space but also living and building relationships in that context. They come back changed and not only in terms of knowledge and words but definitely in terms of mind-set. In terms of how they or approach anything different. When you experience something like this, outside of your immediate perspective, your ability to take in

anything different from you is enhanced. There’s a lot of self-work that happens,” says Nivedita.