When Murphy Raphael John came to speak to me about the National Children’s Parliament initiative… I remember it was the night of the opening o f the Olympics 2012!!! I remember our conversation… two animated characters… sharing thoughts, reviewing ideas!! The one most appealing and exciting quality I love about Murph… is his enthusiasm and I can tell you … it is CONTAGIOUS!!!
Our special relationship began with Santa Workshop… and to this day we admire the vision we share… our paths are very different, yet the goal is the same… to create powerful moments of personal growth and empowerment for those people who connect with our vision. I find it so exciting each time we exchange ideas and vision!! It is amazing energy!! So, before the Olympic ceremony began… We were already excited about being a part of the National Children’s Parliament in any way that we could… the pleasure and experience, we knew was all ours!! Getting closer, our group was revealed…. “Behavioral Changes”, guess, we knew WHY!!! At DeePositive, it has been our excitement to assist and inspire a NEW THOUGHT forward and our core ingredient, well, GRATITUDE!!! One behaviour change, we know should go viral is GRATITUDE!! Once Gratitude is invited, the rest of the experience is a growth, physically, mentally and spiritually! There is more than enough awareness of WHAT IS NOT RIGHT.
Meeting up with the children, a thrill… seeking minds, thinking minds and open minds, craving a new future… yet, so engrossed in the ADULT VISION that they needed to be prodded to speak their age, be their age and live their age. As a grown woman, I can promise you, that being 16 is beautiful when you’re simply being 16. For a lot of us, the want or need to grow up was so upon us, that we’re living 16 at 35 and loving it!! Knowing that we can balance the madness, because the choices we made then, were informed, we lived 16 and loved being 16 and now, we can still dip into being 16 without forgetting that 35 has its specialness too!
Children speaking harshly about politics and using language that they’ve inherited from adult communication is an alarming signal and should be taken pretty seriously… if their unbiased minds is filled with the hate that we so comfortably express as adults, we’re raising a TIME BOMB future for our country. It is essential for CHILDREN to speak their age, love it and learn to be it!!! It is our job as adults to prepare them to take charge of the future of INDIA!! The workshop was an eye-opener… most children reflected a MEDIA point of view… somewhere, in the harsh reality of their LIFE EXPERIENCES is a bitterness, that reflects in their speech. Sarcasm and Judgmental in their approach to peers and seniors reflects more on their exposure to CORRECT than be CORRECTED.
The conversation as part of the group… I was more keen to let the children conclude and in the conclusion, achieve a new thought forward, that was simple… a simple and doable act… that can begin the process of inviting a larger audience to a behavioral change… we took the problems and tried to calculate WHO THE SOLUTION IS… and the children, to our happy surprise concluded that any behavioral change in society begins with a personal decision to CHANGE!!! So, as a group we decided to SMILE and say THANK YOU more often and share this simple BEHAVIORAL CHANGE at different levels of relationships in our lives. Something, only a child can advocate and a child can create something even more beautiful as a part of the future of this country.
On Day II it was ACTIVITIES and we took up two… Ashok and I took the workshop for ad making and Evelyn took the Choreography workshop!!! Fun, yes, we actually had a chance to assist the children convert their conversations of Day I and create memories on Day II!! Surprising, the children who were making ads had absorbed some vital key points that they chose to ADVOCATE on day II… In my memory, there were these two boys who were from the group CHILD ABUSE and their main recall from the previous day was the number 1098 which is the helpline for children!! There were some that HEARD but didn’t listen, absorbed by their need for recognition and so, their first WORD forward was to CHALLENGE and CONTRADICT themselves, something they must’ve picked up watching the parliamentary sessions on TV… where everyone wants to speak and NO ONE CAN ACTUALLY BE HEARD!! What came across as a learning from the children is that their need to be RIGHT was more important than them understanding HOW TO BE RIGHT!
More importantly, we learned, that we would like to be a part of a multitude of children’s lives, we want to assist them in being children and loving everyday of their growing years. We’ve all had our share of challenges while growing up, some helped us grow faster and still others kept the child alive and celebrating. I guess, our exposure to MEDIA HATE CAMPAIGNS were much less or for the more KNOWING ones like ME… I chose, very early to experience life as it unfolded, looking rarely towards the television or internet (more so because we were not exposed to it) to form an opinion about PEOPLE without understanding their experiences first.
What is heartening and creates so much excitement, is the fact that, children absorb pretty intensely that which we give them in terms of information, it is important for us to be extremely aware of our communication, to ensure that we are in fact, passing on THAT WHICH assists them in CREATING a BETTER world not a BITTER world view!
Day III was a day to celebrate the voices of children and as exciting as it gets, my heart rejoiced to see how 4 kids who worked with us on Day I and Day II, made it to the Parliament 
and shared the dias with a real time MLA… 
For us it is God’s way of letting us know that our work with Children, which began with R.O.P.I.O Foundation at Santa Workshop a DeePositive Foundation initiative is leading us to a brand new area of work in which we are but meant to INITIATE A NEW THOUGHT!!! The most exciting part of day III is when Hemani from our group spoke about behavioural changes and her speech as a citizen was acknowledged by MLA Rajesh… most importantly, it wasn’t a speech we assisted her in writing, she spoke with confidence, using her learnings of the last two days as part of her speech!!! It is amazing, how much you can learn from children… if you ALLOW them the FREEDOM to speak their age and live it.
We are of the opinion that we need more initiatives like the National Children’s Parliament, which gives us the opportunity to work with children and in a very insane way, visit ourselves as children again… remember… how we once wanted to make a difference in the way the world thinks… an opportunity… that comes from a chance to connect as children with children and lead a generation to a whole new THOUGHT FORWARD!!!
Special Thanks to some truly special people… Murphy, Rakesh for standing tall and creating the NCP! Rahul, Suruchika, Yamini, Surabhi, Kajal, Akash, Karan, Suraj, Rahul John, Francis, Ashraf, Chetan, Hemani, Gulshan, Ashok, Evelyn, Shruti, Sonam….. for helping us make a difference in our lives by allowing us the pleasure of being a part of yours!!!
and still others kept projecting it as a CHARITY event. In my heart, I knew, that the INTENT was to spread a little gratitude to those who aren’t often RECOGNISED as vital contributors to our everyday life. I kept THANKING for every little N.U.D.G.E in the direction of completion. I felt ALONE and I cried… I cried to JESUS… knowing that this was a test of my INTENT. I received the KNOWLEDGE that ONLY THOSE with MATCHING INTENT, would find their way to the project. Had the REJECTIONS affected my INTENT, maybe, today, SANTA WORKSHOP would still only be an IDEA!! I KNEW the INTENT was pure and from the purity of intent, the project drew unto itself, Dedicated.Enthusiastic.Empowered.Positive people and results. I knew in my heart… that this is exactly what we had set out to achieve… and it was bettered with GOD’s grace.