Building Emotionally Resilient Society Through 'Social Emotional Learning'

'Social-emotional learning' may be understood as the process of developing self-awareness, self-control and interpersonal skills that are vital for school, work and life success.

People with strong social-emotional skills are at an advantageous state of being able to cope with everyday challenges and benefit academically, professionally and socially. From impulse control to emotion management, from effective problem-solving to self-discipline and more, social-emotional learning provides a base for positive and long-term effects on kids, adults and communities.

Children thrive, schools win, workplaces benefit and society strengthens. All of this is possible due to social-emotional learning.

One such organization working in this area is Light Up (Emotions Matter Foundation). Established in 2017 as a non-profit organization based in Delhi/NCR, with a dream of building an emotionally resilient society, through the integration of Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) Programmes, the NGO envisions overhauling the school ecosystems through a promotive and preventive SEL intervention for teachers, parents and students. Their mission is to employ school intervention programs with a focus on SEL workshops and systematically transform schools across India, such that teachers become competent to actively contribute to the prevention of behavioral and emotional problems. The organization has launched its flagship program: Emotional Resilience Programme. In this 3 year-long program, the organization will be delivering teacher training and parent sensitization programs. Teaching delivery would be complemented with a grade (2nd-9th Standard) wise SEL curriculum for students. Sensitizing parents to build healthier home environments and helping students develop a healthy way of articulating and coping with their conflicts in school and beyond would be parallel program components.

BW Education engaged in an exclusive conversation with Juhi Sharma, Founder & CEO, Light Up (Emotions Matter Foundation), who shed more light on the subject. Edited excerpts:

Is there any monetary cost charged for the SEL curriculum and the training sessions/workshops that you provide the schools with? 

We don't charge any cost from the schools.

Light up NGO provides assistance to low-budget schools. So, is the NGO open to both private and government schools? 

At the moment, we work with only government, low-income budget schools.

Let us know about the schools that you are currently working with.

Currently, we have partnered with the National Independent Schools Alliance (NISA), low-income budget schools to further SEL inclusion in schools. NISA partners with education sector organizations to build an ecosystem for systemic-level change. In 2021, we are partnering with 2 schools and would be impacting with 7000 beneficiaries in the ecosystem.