Aged 2, Ranbir watched his mother, suffering from TB, cough to death on the streets. Ranbir’s mother was in agony for days before her death, but no one came to help.

When Ranbir began the Paint Our World workshops at the age of four, he was very reticent and unwilling to mingle — very un-childlike. It was only through Play and Dance & Movement Therapy that we were able to work with him to release his traumatic memories and the shame, fear and guilt that he had internalised. A Dance and Movement Therapy workshop was especially telling and affective, when Ranbir played out the affect of his trauma ‘safely’ by making a mask. He called his mask Madhur and said “Madhur was quiet on the outside, but on the inside he was sad because nobody came to help his mum when she was dying”.

This activity enabled Madhur to acknowledge and externalise his trauma for the first time, thus taking a step forward in the healing process. Acceptance and the externalising of trauma is a fundamental step in trauma healing.

Paint Our World has been empowering 350 such children with a trauma afflicted past so far, and still has a long road ahead…