Breaking Barriers

In the year 2013, the school initiated its Human Rights campaign ‘Breaking Barriers’. This social outreach program of the school, is a sincere attempt to sensitize senior school students about the LGBTQI + community, by highlighting and addressing the prejudice against the members of this community through years of stereotyping and social conditioning by society.

The main objectives which propel the campaign are;

1. To reiterate that we are an inclusive school in all respects.

2. To encourage students to respect diversity in all forms.

3. Prevent bullying, on any grounds, at school.

4. Sensitize senior students, to dispel myths and misconceptions around the community.

5. Foster a school climate that is open to dialogue and accepting of differences.

The school is a pioneer amongst schools across the nation, to have opened a dialogue on a sensitive subject that must not be avoided.

The beginning and journey of the campaign so far is as follows;

• As an active member of The Global Education Leadership Foundation (t GELF) which is dedicated to grooming socially conscious youth leaders, our alumni, Sohini Chakrabarti and Safina Amin presented this campaign at tGELF’s Youth Leader Competition and were declared winners. Ever since the school is committed to breaking social barriers which undermine human rights in any way.
• The school embarked on a mission to expand the reach of its Human Rights campaign for the LGBTQI (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Intersex), by identifying and training volunteer peer educators from classes IX-XI. The sole objective was to help spread awareness and, sensitise schools and institutions across the city about this community.
• The ‘Breaking Barriers’ team then partnered with CREA and the Naz Foundation and since then, CREA has conducted nearly 25 hours of intensive training for our peer educators.
• The peer educators regularly conduct informative awareness workshops for students of Class IX-XII and all teachers within the school. They have been invited by other schools and organisations to carry out the sensitization workshops.
• So far, the campaign members have  sensitised more than 3500 students across the city, reaching out to more than 30 schools.
• We take pride in being the only school in the country to actively participate in the Delhi Pride Parade every year from the year 2013 onwards.
• The Naz foundation has provided us with resources and also facilitated an interactive session between the peer educators and members of the LGBTQI community.
• The school has a social media handle @breakingbarrierscampaign on Instagram, with all updates on the work undertaken by the campaign members.
• We have an informative notice board, an anonymous complaint box, scrapbook and a shelf dedicated to the LGBTQI community, in the library.

Since its inception, we can very proudly say that we’ve truly come a long way, not just in terms of the impact on others, but also the appreciation we’ve received for taking up this initiative.

Our social campaign was validated by being declared a winner under the ‘Best Practices’ category and the school was publically showcased in the 25th National Annual Sahodaya Conference in November 2019.