“Namaste,” greeted the teacher in a kinder garden our group of five coming for one day to help them in a day care centre in a slum. “Welcome to our humble facility,” she showing us one big room divided to three spaces for children of a different age. “Today, we have a 200 kids around, so it will be a bit noisy. But I have heard, you are scouts and can do marvellous things with them, so I am looking forward to it.” … “But we were told to have here maximum 100 kids of an age 7 – 12 years old, not 200 smaller children aged 0 – 6 years old. Ehm, but we will do it!,” my friend from Scotland reassuring herself as much as us at the same time. And of course, we pulled it together, and kids were begging us at the end of the day to stay longer.
Brave Space was a leadership event, which took place between 4th and 10th July 2024 in the World Scout Center Sangam in Pune, India. It focused not only to leadership itself, but also to other aspects of a world scouting and guiding, such as creating lasting international friendship, getting to know and be aligned with WAGGGS values, and experiencing the culture of India. I was honoured to be on of 17 young girl guides participating at this marvellous event, together with others from Scotland, Egypt, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Madagascar, and India.
“Czech Republic? Where is that?!?”
I arrived a day earlier, which happened to be a smart decision, due to a tiredness and a jetlag from long flights. I could enjoy to have all the facility for myself, to enjoy jut listening to the sounds of a nature behind the walls, swimming poll, and a delicious chai for an afternoon snack time. Before dinner some more people has arrived and we started to greet each other, and share first contacts. “Hi, I am Lada from the Czech Republic, how are you?” “Hello? Where did you say you are from?” “Oh, it is central Europe.” “Central? Hmmm, I see, Europe! Ah, nice to meet you.”
Welcome to Sangam!
On the first official day we started with a flag ceremony as it happened every other morning. It was a ritual to gathering for an information about upcoming day, and also to go all together for a breakfast. Later, we were introduced to a programme of the whole Brave Space 2024 event. We took a tour around the Sangam World Scout Centre, with its spacious property.
And we focused a bit more on the bravery itself. We drew, what exactly is our brave space, or in which situations we feel brave. We discovered WAGGGS Leadership mindsets, and before dinner we started a necessary preparation for an opening ceremony. It was a very lovely ritual with flowers, flags, and bindi (the dot on a forehead).
Get inspired
For morning birds, there were a yoga session from seven o´clock with a lovely Mrs. Mathura Adhar. After a flag ceremony, we had a fresh and yummy breakfast, and than we went for a neighbourhood walk. We learnt, that at the same area, as is the property of a Sangam, there lives about 15 000 people just behind the wall, and that they all share mutual understanding for each other’s religion – there are temples of Hindu, Christianity, Buddha and few others. We also met a fascination 95-years old lady, who worked in Sangam all her life, and now she still loves to stay in touch and meet with all international people coming there.
Free Being Me is programme shaped by WAGGGS together with Dove, for young girls and women, working on a topic of beauty standards and unrealistic expectations of a body and appearance. We also tried to draw “the perfect male and female body”, which we realised is impossible, and we wrote few appreciating lines for others based on their character and behaviour.
Later, we felt inspired by stories of six local people from Pune, who came to tell us their stories. Some of them had a very hard life, and needed to literally start from zero, to fulfil their dreams. Some of them had to fight cultural stereotypes, and overcome obstacles with their gender in order to do what they love and wanted to do (like becoming a female doctor or a female firefighter).
In the evening, we played the WAGGGS guessing game. And I must say, that even though I thought my knowledge about international scouting is good, it was a tough one. But, we pulled it together with my team and we won!
When we shine
One of the domain, how can you find Sangam online, is a hashtag When we shine. And it is not just it, it is a full movement, with a song, and a dance, and the whole inspirational path for young girls and women. So, we tried to dance it, and enjoy a bit of a sparkle living and moving freely in a pure female collective.
We were introduced to a traditional indian clothing, in form of a saari and Punjabi. Because later, we took few rickshaws and went to the city centre to visit local markets and shops. We could get some bangles (12 bracelets from glass or metal), bindis (forehead dots, that can be bought also as a stickly little shiny piece), saaris (female traditional costume consisting of a croptop, underskirt and a huge piece of outer fabric) and Punjabis (knee long shirt with usually longer sleeves). We also enjoyed lunch out together at the market, with came in a shape of a delicious paneer with a garlic naan and a fresh lime. On our way back to Sangam, we took a local bus back (horrible!).
In the afternoon I tried to complete a Sangam treasure hunt, but I was not successful, since there were quite a lot of pieces missing due to a renovation of a great hall. At night, we had a movie night with a film called Axone.
Be brave
Despite the monsoon season, we tried our bravery in practice. We were jumaring up on a rope to a five meters hight to a trees crown, and also we were rappelling the water tower about 25 meters down. It was amazing! Empowering! Tiring, but simply awesome.
Later we had time to prepare for Sangam community partners visits next day, where we should carry out some activities for children (we were divided into going to the centre for people with a different abilities Snehalaya, Anand Gram school and daycentre for children Tara Mobile Crest). On our free night later we had an amazing pool party!
Community Action Challenge day
I went with a four other participants to carry out few activities for children from a day-care centre Tara Mobile Crest in a slum village for construction workers. We enjoyed few action songs, various cooperative and competitive games, parachute activities, and crafting activity with pipe cleaners, which all of the children simply loves. It was exhausting and great at the same time, because there were about 200 kids aged 2 - 6 years old, despite our earlier information to have just a half of such a number and twice older. You could hear Hoki Poki song coming from various corner of an outdoor playground even an hour later, after we finished with the programme, and children running around with a furry soft glasses to be made out from a pipe cleaners. “Please, do not go. I do not want you to go away just now,” asked kids. But unfortunately we had return to Sangam.
Later in a day, we evaluated our plan, evaluated our strengths in a team, what went well, who we would do differently next time, and also how we practiced our leadership by doing it. And we celebrated our shared effort by a special dinner.
An international evening full of songs, dances, and tasting of a yummy food from different corners of the world was a lovely closure of the day. I could taste traditional wedding sweets from India, biscuits from Egypt, to have my name written in Arabic, to swap some badges from Scotland to Australia, and to try some typical music instrument from Africa consisting from a stick and a wooden ball. In addition, even the fact that the power went out could not ruin our fun and a good time.
Sangam challenge – in Pune on our own
“Today you will us all you have gained and learnt throw-out the whole week, and you will be send to a Sangam challenge,” we got the explanation of our task for the day. On our own, we needed to visit three assigned sightseeing sites, manage to get there on our own, to gather necessary information about the place, and sometimes complete some little task. My group went to Dr. Ambedkar Museum, Pataleshwar Cave Temple, and Teishund Ganesh Temple. Then, as a cherry on a cake, we had to take a lunch costed 50 INR each (about 0,55 EUR), which is the poverty line in India, to realize what it is like to find such a cheap food. “How do we do that, ladies,” asked Jasmine. “I mainly want to eat something clean. That is the priority.” “I agree, so let´s check the shopping mall close to Sangam. I think I saw some of the local little food places there.” We ended up having a corn cheese pizza.
In the afternoon, we learnt to wear a saari, which is far more complicated to tight up, that how it looks like. We put a henna drawing on our palms. We could experience few typical local activities, like a game of Carrom, which resembles a pool on a wooden board placed on a table, a cricket or a badminton. We drew mandalas, and we also did rangolis, colourful Indian paintings, which are placed to the floor by sprinkling chalk with hands. Later, we had a typical local Maharastrian dinner with sitting on a floor eating with our hands only, and enjoying all the spicy local food, (the mango pudding as a desert was amazing). In the evening, we could try some local dances, even though it was rather difficult for us with a stiff hips and wrists.
Sweet tiffin memories
On our last day together, we started early. At seven o´clock in the morning we have already headed to a nearby Palm garden, where we were completing a set of challenges. In a group of five people, we were completing tasks regarding each Leadership mindsets. Some of the activities were just for us; some required an interaction with locals. Later, we got late breakfast, in Indian called Maitri, and we had a moment when our Sangam challenge tasks were checked in order to receive a badge.
The tiffin, is the set of those little metal containers for food, which is used in India a lot. And we all received one tiny one, to be able to bring our memories back home in it, as much as we could enjoy a nice little theatre sketch done by a Sangam team for us, to wrap up the experience. We created one more rangoli together, to commemorate the most valuable time in here, and we closed our time with a collective singing.
After the last lunch at the Brave Space 2024 it was a time to head back home. I bet, none of us wanted to leave. But I guess, that was the right time to go. Having our head proud and straight up, our phone full of photos and contacts, and our chest filled with warmth and tender. Thank you Sangam, the whole team, and all participants - you made my stay truly wonderful, and I am sure, I use my brave space in me to spreading some good in this world. To fulfil my dreams, to bring more young girls and women into the light, for them and me to be ready to face the world, and to knowing that there is a huge girl guide and Sangam family I belong. I also thank WAGGGS for offering me and many other women and girls many opportunities for personal growth and the chance to be an important part of the local community as well as the international movement. I am also grateful to my national organization, Junak - Czech Scouting, for sending me to this event and thus supporting my participation.
