"I imagine a future where there will be no boundaries, no borders but one land, one religion, humanity, and love. It'll be a world where everyone understands the real meaning of arts and education."

- Supriya, a Slam Out Loud student

Children from disadvantaged backgrounds face a lack of engaging opportunities to build creative confidence and are thereby dis-empowered to harness their voices to break the cycle of negative outcomes.

Art education has globally proved to build in children skills that help them be more employable and have better life outcomes, yet the average Art teacher: student ratio in India is 1:1400 ( according to an RTI filed by Slam Out Loud), giving children less than 20 hours of art education every year.

Slam Out Loud uses the transformative power of performance and visual arts to help build creative confidence (SEL, 21st-century skills) skills like communication, critical thinking and empathy in children from disadvantaged communities. We work with professional artists and e-learning resources to help children build the skills needed for them to dream bigger and create their future. 

Slam Out Loud's response to Covid-19

With some 826 million (82.6 crore) students kept out of the classroom by the Covid-19 pandemic without access to a household computer, the past few weeks have made our privilege so visual and for us as educators, highlighted the divide of access in digital engagements and learning. At Slam Out Loud, our shifted reality has strengthened our commitment to making children's voices heard everywhere. 

We’ve adapted our interventions to prioritize children’s well being, leveraging the power of art and low tech platforms. All resources keep children’s well being and socio-emotional learning at the centre because this is what children need at this time. The idea is to enable children to form deeper connections with themselves while engaging with their families too during these uncertain times and use art as a medium for a creative outlet. 

Art Alerts through WhatsApp

We’ve created an online series of high quality arts-based experiences in Hindi and English (and coming soon, in more languages!) aimed towards learning through poetry, theater, visual arts, and storytelling. Children, parents and teachers receive these byte-sized activities through a daily WhatsApp alert (you can subscribe here too!) which engages them in hands-on activities, helps them share their art and interact with accomplished artists. The service is completely free to use. Through safe spaces for creative outlets and sharing, our children have been attempting art activities within their homes everyday, as well as disseminating inspiration within their own communities.

Our WhatsApp channel currently reaches 30000 children daily, across 16 countries and 23 states in India. 

Audio Activities via IVRS

To reach out to the most vulnerable children, who do not even have access to a low tech platform like WhatsApp, we now intend to launch localized audio versions of these activities and scale them through IVRS and radio platforms. 

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Our Programs pre-COVID- (and in the process of pivoting to respond to COVID)

The Jijivisha Fellowship

• 5-year relay model wherein professional artists are placed in a low-income classroom every year. 
• Fellows deliver 18 sessions (75 hours) of arts based learning across art forms like poetry, storytelling, theater and visual arts. 
• Culminates in local and city-wide Art Melas
• Monitoring and evaluation of growth in creative confidence. 
• So far, we have brought Jijivisha to 100 artists and 6500 children across India.

Through comprehensive surveys of various stakeholders, including students, artists, fellows, and school staff, we have seen that: 

• 94% of our students say they feel excited to try new things and be creative
  
• 85% say they've grown (become more self-confident, creative, and so on) as a result of taking the class
  
• 95% say they discovered new concepts, skills, or ideas in class
  
• 100% Jijivisha fellows feel that they’re contributing to social change through their art

Voice For All 

• Enables access to quality arts education resources through tech-based platforms and facilitator training 
• Culminates in community-led Art Melas
• Interactive, vernacular and user-friendly interface 
• On ground organizations like Pratham as implementation partners 
• Launched in 950 villages across 4 Indian states, reaching 50000 children

Slam Out Loud has worked with children across 4 states in India, with over 50,000 original artworks created, and performances done for a cumulative audience of 75,000. 

We have worked with children and youth from low-income communities and conflict areas, Departments of Education of Kashmir and Maharashtra, parents, jail inmates, out of school children, and college-going students. 15 of our children have been TedX speakers, and the children have facilitated nearly 50 art workshops for adults and other children.

To find out more:

• Mid-Day | Art in Your Inbox
• The Swaddle | 14‑Year‑Olds Running Slam Poetry Workshops Prove Arts Education Shouldn’t Be an Afterthought
  
• NDTV | Slam Out Loud Brings Arts Into Education
  
• The Indian Express | Slam Out Loud: Changing the World Through Poetry