DIL ki doosri trip. The second time around, I had the company of Anas and Jibran. And this time we had already arranged for a car – so no chaotic last-minute scrambling to arrange a car this time. The ride to Orangi town was long, but it was filled with exciting conversations about field work, facilitation and passion for social work. 

Upon reaching DIL Muhammad Secondary School, we were welcomed by familiar faces who were overjoyed to greet us. There were fewer ladies compared to last time, but the enthusiasm was still there. We all sat down and started conversing about the last time we saw each other; some mothers shared that they told other mothers and their children about the previous session on emotional awareness and even practiced listening to their bodies in their free time.

A mother shared that she had been journaling regularly and found it helpful for organizing her thoughts, managing daily tasks, and it gave her a mental refresh. There were some new faces that had joined us for the second day and initially expressed hesitation in participating in the art making process but approached it with a whimsical demeanor. One woman, who had reluctantly attended the first session, shared that she initially felt confused about the activities and what was expected of her. However, once she experienced the open space for self-expression through art and discussion, she got inspired and became eager to return for future sessions. 

In the second session, we decided to bring our attention to visualizing ourselves as a tree and allocating different parts of a tree to aspects in our life. “Me as a Tree” was the prompt and there was freedom of creating any type of tree, with any shades of colors and other representative elements. The guidelines were to reflect on the aspects in life that serve as ‘roots’ to ground us, strengths that make our ‘trunk’ stronger, aspirations that ‘branch’ out in our life and the ‘environment’ or external factors surrounding our tree.

Everybody added a personal touch to their artworks from drawing out their children as flowers on their trees to giving their trees facial features that they associate with themselves. While sharing about our artwork, the discussion turned to one individual who shared that she was currently struggling with navigating the system to meet her children’s needs. It was a moment of vulnerability expressed between all the women where many offered assistance and guidance, but the individual took a moment to release her frustrations by talking about it in a larger group. What came up in the process was that the women admitted not being able to have regular social meetups where they can come us a group and talk about their issues and seek help. One of them even said, “agar aap nahi hoti tou ham iss tarha milkay baithay nahi hotay”. This highlighted the need for us to incorporate further sessions that help build sense of community and work on building a support system other than family. 

The purpose of these visits has been to gather enough information to develop a curriculum for the mothers of the students at DIL. The sessions have been productive enough for us to gauge the audiences’ interest and get a glimpse of their needs with regards to social-emotional coping skills and awareness.  

After the session ended, we took a few moments to talk with the mothers about planning the future sessions; when and where they would like it to happen, who else they would like to invite, how they would like to stay connected etc. Several women eagerly asked when the next session would happen, showing the importance it held to them. One of the girls who has been consistently participating was a sister of a student at the school who volunteered to help with the planning.  

Soon it was time to leave, with handshakes and hugs we bid each other farewell with the promise to reunite after Ramzan. DIL has certainly now become part of our dil (heart). See you all soon with similar blogs about our journey of interventions at DIL Secondary School.