Namita writes:

“Bithika, where do you take a shower? There is no place here!”

That was the question Putul asked her friend of three years. For the first time Putul saw how her friend lives - one small room for four family members, a kitchen with enough space for only one person to sit and no bathroom or toilet. Her next reaction was, “I will never complain about things at my shelter home. I always thought we did not have enough facilities. But now I think I live in a lot of comfort. We even have a huge ground to play…”

Putul visited Bithika’s house for the shooting of a film that this group of girls was making on Bithika’s life. In this group of eight girls, four come from a shelter home for girls rescued from trafficking, abuse and domestic violence. The rest of the girls come from slums. All of them are participants in a year long video training. They felt very confident about themselves going around with a camera and shooting in the slum, in spite of people literally staring at them.

It was a first time experience for all of them to see each other’s living spaces, environment and surroundings. The girls living in the slums with their parents were moved to see how their friends from the shelter home live, when they went for a shoot there too. “Imagine, they live in such a huge room, with around 30 other girls, but there is no one who is their own. I wonder who she talks with when she gets upset, there is no sister to run for help, no mother to give her advice…no brother to play with…maybe my house is really small and in a dirty slum, but I have a home with a family.”

This experience not only exposed them to each other’s reality but also made all the girls appreciate what they have got. Girls, who have faced violence, find the feeling of security in their environment at the shelter home and girls from the slums value that they are living with their family. And when a video training process brings in such kind of experiences for young, 14 years olds, it is indeed inspiring. It moves beyond being simply a technical-skills building process and takes larger meaning.

One resounding statement at the end of the workshop that almost all the girls said was, “I, now, really appreciate everything I have got. I will focus only on how to make my life better!”

Putul, Bithika and 6 other girls are participants of a video training being conducted by Video Volunteers at a Kolkata-based NGO, Kolkata Sanved. This training is a part of the project being funded by ‘Global Fund for Children’.