About Self-expression,among other things :)

Hello everyone!

My name is Reeti Roy and I'm a second year student of English Literature and I'm studying in Jadavpur University,Kolkata. As part of the Choice Youth Leadership Programme,I will be working with an Organisation called "WritehereWritenow"(which I will refer to as WHWN henceforth), an Online Writing Community for Schoolchildren.

WritehereWritenow conducts workshops every month for schoolchildren between the ages of 12-14. My work will be to ensure that people from classes nine to twelve also develop an interest and decide to pursue this course. Whwn charges its members a nominal fee of Rs Rs 500 annually and conducts a number of Online and Offline courses.

I will also try to get Clubs, Schools and Bookstores interested in our venture. I will also help to devise the Modules of the Creative Writing workshops that we will conduct.

So from next month,I'll probably be hopping around, setting up meetings, talking to people about WHWN, getting down to knowing and understanding the intricacies of WHWN myself and hopefully coming up with creative ideas on how to market WHWN :)

WHWN is also going to be conducting "Diary Writing Sessions" in schools. So how does this thing work? Are we going to ask people to read out from their diaries? Is this a way of improving one's writing? Absolutely not. This is an age old method of therapy. Today,teenagers have to deal with a lot of angst. Sibling Trouble,Pressure from parents with regard to Academics and trying to fit in with one's peers just add to all the mayhem in a teenagers life. And the fact that West Bengal has the highest number of suicides happening isn't just a cold statistic anymore.We're not psychiatrists or even psychologists, but we do believe that Arts IS therapeutic and all we want schoolchildren to do, is to write about their troubles and experiences so that they can give vent to their frustrations.We want to use the Arts as a way of Therapy.Some people paint.And others,they listen to music.We want to encourage people to write away their agony.We also want to ask the students how they feel before and after they write.After the writing session,we will have an open discussion and we will ask young people about what it is that irks them about their lives and what are the niggling fears and anxieties that they are battling on a daily basis.(It will be voluntary,of course.No one will be forced to speak if they don't want to.)We don't know how well this is going to be received,but I think that this is something that is extremely important and something that we have to do.There is a chance of schools shying away saying "this doesn't happen in our schools"but I think it's necessary to be persistent about such issues.

I will keep documenting my experiences on this blog as I go along.


In the meanwhile,do check out our website:WritehereWritenow