Girls’ (Movie) Day Out!

The girls of Life Skills Empowerment (LSE) recently had a gala time watching a Bollywood movie, and for many of these girls, this was the first time they watched a movie, not on TV or mobile phone, but in a movie theater!

One of our partners, Bookmyshow.com’s (a website for booking movie/theater/events etc tickets) “Book A Smile” initiative organised a free screening of the latest Bollywood release “Hichki” which addresses two very important issues of the modern society – importance of RTE and acceptance of differently abled individuals. In this movie, there are a group of students belonging to one of the slums of Mumbai, who under RTE (Right to education Act) get admission in the topmost school of Mumbai, but how the teachers and other students of the same school discriminate against them, is shown in a very realistic manner. To help these students, the Principal tries to hire a teacher but since no teacher is able to handle these “rowdy and hooligan” students, the school then finds a teacher who has speech disorder called Tourette Syndrome, that makes the individual hiccup (Hichki in Hindi) in every sentence due to an involuntary spark in the brain. And since no school wants to hire a “special” person like her, this school, due to failure of retaining a “normal – speech” teacher, hires this particular individual. And then the growth of this teacher (how she proves her merit as an effective teacher) and the students (who prove that a child’s potential has got nothing to do with their economic status) is shown in this movie in a beautiful manner.

This movie was selected by the Book A Smile initiative and these tickets for the girls were accepted by the project team of LSE as it addresses some key points of RTE, the importance of self-confidence and of going to school to lead a decent life, and that too in an entertaining heart-touching manner. And such movies have an everlasting impact on kids, teaching them about how important it is to continue and complete one’s education, despite socio-economic issues, how important it is to find out about government policies and provision for the underprivileged, to ensure that one’s future is not compromised upon due to the bad present conditions.

The girls really enjoyed the movie. “It was a very nice movie and really touched our hearts. And they show how important it is to get education and not fall into the perils of child labour and it is equally important to continue it with dedication and perseverance, to succeed in life. These are things we learn in our LSE sessions but to see a movie on it shows us how there are many like us and we are not alone in this fight against poverty.”

Also, since it was the first time many of these girls were going to the movie theater for the first time, it was a new experience for them and they were very excited about the same! We are so thankful to Bookmyshow.com and its Book A Smiles initiative for such a wonderful gesture for our girls, thank you so much from all of us!!