The plane jar

The last one week was historic. An organisation called “The Plane Jar” had it’s first Child  Abuse Awareness and Survivor’s Assistance (CAASA) workshop. Of many things in the workshop, it also highlighted the fact that abuse could happen to anybody irrespective of their gender. In fact, the agenda included  speakers at the workshop from varied sexual orientation and gender identities who spoke about their own unique challenges as a child who is more vulnerable due to their sexual orientation or gender expression or gender identity. 

The Plane Jar is an organisation that focuses on the youth. It beings to fore the issues that are mostly hushed due to taboo. Inch by inch, workshop after workshop, they work at reducing the stigma and raising awareness on issues ranging from sexuality, gender identity and abuse. They are a bunch of 18 to 20 year olds but one cannot dismiss them because of their age. Not many organisations run by older adults have achieved the kind of results that this bunch has achieved. In barely their first year of functioning, they have organised several workshops and participated in the pride parade. They have now challenged themselves with the task of this CAASA workshop. 

They took a couple of months to put together the curriculum for the workshop and worked with organisations and individuals to ensure that the attendee has everything that it takes from empathy to practical solutions when they are handling complex cases of child sexual abuse. Everytime anyone spoke, they reiterated the ills of mis-gendering the person and that children come from all genders and all sexualities. This group of attendees of the workshop would be heading to police stations and will also work on their listening skills to empower adult survivors of abuse and sexual abuse. 

As people who are “experienced”, we think of panel discussions and presentations when we think of workshops. But, this group thought over and beyond the box. They worked at equipping the first respondents with adequate knowledge. Over the 6 days, there were moments of happiness and also moments where everyone was soaked in tears after hearing the narratives of survivors of child sexual abuse and child abuse. There were many triggers for both happiness and helplessness.

While the workshop was fantastically received by everyone, it also unintentionally sent out a strong message. The young adults broadly called as “youth” is the biggest demographic of India. We cannot ignore them. We cannot bully them by calling them  “too young”. We should not refer to them as kids. We should not be condescending towards them. They are people with ideas and they can bring in change the way the older crowd could have never imagined. We, the older ones, need not stop using our experience to guide, but while guiding, let us not dismiss the young. 

Better young forever, 

Hai naah?

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