The DREAMS Program

A holistic approach to education is concerned with the intellectual, emotional, social, physical, artistic, creative, and spiritual potentials of each individual. It aims to involve students in the teaching or learning process and promotes individual and group accountability.

In the current scenario, many educational institutions are battling, in catering to their learners with professional skills through online platforms. It becomes necessary that through these individualized patterns of functioning within the online networking there is an integration of life skills with professional capacity building. These mechanisms can be transformed to collectivistic integration of community collaborative models in uplifting personal developmental holistic skills and sensory integration.

The DREAMS Program

Likewise, the DREAMS (Thomas, 2014) Program exemplifies the attributes of holistic development for our children, youth, and the community at large. The free voluntary initiative focuses on bringing the community back to schools and institutions, in addition to boosting individual strengths and psycho-social skills.

The DREAMS (Thomas, 2014) Program’s three-year curriculum is designed to assist underprivileged and underperforming middle school children in their holistic development — year one focuses on personal development, year two on interpersonal skills, and year three on leadership abilities. With the help of the local community, this community mentoring project is executed in schools by college or university students. The program aims to provide knowledge and resources to these students so that they can develop into better versions of themselves and lead not just themselves but also their communities to a brighter future.

The DREAMS Constructs

DREAMS stands for Desire, Readiness, Empowerment Action, Mastery, a five-step model to accomplish holistic Success.

The first dimension of the model is ‘Desire’ which reflects an individual learner’s passion for learning, as well as their fascination and hunger for wisdom that constitutes the initial phase towards the path of accomplishment.
The second construct of the model is ‘Readiness’ that is known as the ability to face any stones thrown by the planet, turns this obsession into reality. The process of learned inquisitiveness for findings solutions that are constructive realistic.
The third aspect of the model is ‘Empowerment’ that mould learners in providing their physiological systems and internal innate spiritual system a chance to individually transform with the universe. The dynamic dimensions that are defined and evaluated through empowerment are individual, social, and authoritative capacities.
The fourth dimension of the model includes ‘Action’ that contains the abilities to accept both strengths and weaknesses to blend both inclusively into the accomplishment of goals.
The fifth part of the model is ‘Mastery’ that is the outcome of consistent behavior that propels the learner into the orbit of achievement. Accomplishment leads to a greater fascination that revolves around the pathway to ‘Success’.

All of these culminate towards ‘Success’ that is the pathway of accomplishment including one’s aspirational transformation into realistic goals (Thomas, 2014).

Thus, the DREAMS (Thomas, 2014) Program is a three-year curriculum-based Community Collaborative Mentoring Program developed by Dr. Lijo Thomas in 2014. The program is implemented through a Summer Camp Model for underserved teenagers of middle schools who are battling with self-confidence and social skills.

The Summer Camp is an initiative in developing the psychosocial skills of teenagers through the supportive network of youth and local community volunteers. It aims to merge the community into schools in bringing back the value of a collectivistic society. This year DREAMS Virtual Summer Camp 2021 will take place virtually from the Month of Mid-June onwards in Bangalore. The objective is to involve all educational and community organizations to unite and strengthen the capacities of our dynamic learners through the DREAMS (Thomas, 2014) vision.

For more details about the organization kindly visit https://letusdream.org/about-us/

For Registration of the DREAMS Virtual Summer Camp for your School, kindly contact: bangalore@letusdream.org

Reference:

Thomas, L. (2014). Evaluation of the dreams program: An intervention model for the success of low performing middle school students. University of Louisiana at Monroe.
https://www.proquest.com/openview/4c3c6c108e286a23f306482b9f710449/

Roseline Gomes Member since May 19, 2020

Roseline is a Ph.D. Scholar of Psychology at CHRIST (Deemed to be University), Bangalore, and an Assistant Professor of Psychology & Counselor at Jyoti Nivas College Autonomous. She is currently doing research in integrating mentoring and positive psychology interventions into the school curriculum to make the learning and teaching experience more collaborative, humane, and skill-based. She wishes to change the mindsets of educators, caregivers, and policymakers in bringing out wellness in education for Children and Youth. Ms. Roseline in the process of dealing with learners battling with mental health concerns had diverted their attention into their passion for music, art, theatre, journaling and in the process realized that it led them to cope with the signs of psychological traumas. Hence, the growth of a Youth Collaborative Forum in her parent's name called Shilpi & Michael Foundation came up through her initiatives, where adolescents and children are torchbearers in creating peer support groups as an experiential educational model. Shilpi symbolizes 'Art' and Michael exemplifies 'Skill & Capacity Building', which are the two experiential teachings Ms. Roseline learned from her caregivers. This forum also guides in uplifting those who undergo psychological challenges and handhold them in growing together as a unit with strength.

Contributor