‘Dhool Ke Phool’, An Attempt to Recognize Young Talent from the Slums

Bhubaneswar: An attempt to make our children self-confident of their hidden talents Dhool Ke Phool a flagship programme of “Humara Bachpan” a campaign on safe and healthy environment for young children living in urban poverty got its first public stage performance at the CII’s Enterprise Odisha. Children from different slums of the city after proper scrutiny performed at this industry meet.

The 16 talents are from different slums of the city such as Salia Sahi, Nuapalli Sabar Basti, Nilakantha Nagar Munda Sahi etc displayed their talent in dance and song at the Industries Meet.

Sasmita Behera, a 9year old girl from Salia sahi aspires to be the dancing queen. Financial and environmental obstacles have failed to obstruct the desires of this little heart whose father still struggles for a living being an furniture polisher. Tina and Debashis are not exceptions being coming from a Newspaper hawker and driver’s family yet they are on the right path to achieve their ambitions. Dhool Ke Phool have given a new birth to their hidden desires and nurtured their talents, says the parents of these kids. There are many similar heart touching stories which came into the forefront after the Dhool ke Phool initiative.

To ensure that the urban poor children have access to child development programmes, the flagship initiative under ‘Humara Bachpan’ campaign “Dhool Ke Phool” witnessed selection of 16 finalists from a pool of more than 450 children from the slums of Bhubaneswar who performed in the CII sponsored Enterprise meet on 24^{th November in the IDCO exhibition ground. The sense of pride of the parents as well as the children was overwhelming. Letting the young children grow in an enabling environment is their basic right. Children living in poverty should not be devoid of this right. With a quest to make thousands flowers bloom through this innovative talent programme which is closely linked to the young children growing up in a proper physical environment, Dhool ke Phool achieved its objective of providing the much required platform to the young talented children of Bhubaneswar slums.}

“Dhool Ke Phool” is an initiative to create a child friendly urban ecosystem. Dhool Ke Phool is committed to identify, promote and motivate the talents hidden in the children of the slums and provide the required training from the experts in their area of competency says Gobinda Ballava Dalai, Secreatary YDF. This innovative programme has been conceptualized by YDF but organizations like Bernard van Leer Foundation, CII and 5Elements, Team have also come forward to support the cause of these amazing kids.