Change the Script 2025- Redefining Success

Last week Ishan and I attended Change the Script (CTS) 2025, a gathering (not a conference), that brings different stakeholders in the education ecosystem together over 3 days to reimagine education. 

Change the Script (CTS) is not about technology for social impact. So why did I attend? 

Back in April 2024, Suchetha Bhat, CEO Dream a Dream, had come in to speak to the Tech4Dev team about their journey from building and implementing SEL (social and emotional learning) curriculum to engaging with government policy and addressing the need for systemic change.
She pushed the team to think about what it means to design technology for social impact in contrast with technology designed for profit that is generally seen as beneficial for society at large.

I enjoyed the conversation. It reminded me of my days at TFI and TISS, I missed engaging in such dialogue. So a year later, when Lobo extended the opportunity to participate in the Change the Script 2025 gathering I jumped at it.

CTS is hosted at SAIACs CEO centre in Bangalore. In the days leading up to the gathering, a few people asked me if I was ‘prepared’. Which I laughed off as the only preparation I had done was to approach the event with an open mind. Little did I know that I would fall short even in this regard. The experience will stay with me for months/years to come, its a lot to unpack. 

Here are the highlights–

Sucheta, Tania, and Romana opened day one and put forward a few key messages which became more clearly relevant over the three days:

1. Attendees’ first reaction to CTS is often “heh?”. And that’s fine, engage to the extent that you’re comfortable.
2. Over the next few days each of us will explore what success means for ourselves and in education
3. CTS is centred around inclusion, and learning what it really means to ‘listen’.

My favourite activities at CTS:

1. Writing our own ‘I am from’ poems and sharing it with our groups as a way to recognise the narratives that shape us. You must try it for yourself. 
2. Listening to stories from the youth in the room on their experience with the education system and how it has failed them. Bringing to light the prevalent narratives that shape and perpetuate the systemic injustices that leave students behind.
3. Moving away from the keyboard; Activities that involved drawing, using clay, making notes in my CTS notebook, I can’t remember the last time I did any of these things.
4. Last but not least, the evening musical performances by Bindumalini and Vasu Dixit Collective. What an amazing and perfectly fitting way to end each day. Though I must admit, when Vasu Dixit Collective got everyone up on their feet and dancing and I remained seated, I began to wonder if I had become old and boring and needed to take a walk to try to process this.

If you are planning to facilitate a gathering/conference/session and you want to do a great job consider talking to the Dream and Dream team and looking up Nadia Chaney whose work guided the CTS team.

My favourite conversations at CTS

1. A chat with Illa from YouthxYouth where I learned about the concept of weaving, which is the basis for the design of CTS and YouthxYouth’s work. 
2. Dr. Alim who I got to speaking with over chai after he picked me out from across the room for a drawing activity because of my curly hair 😀
   He shared his journey advocating for the deaf, towards now leading the Hear a Million project with EnAble India. I learned how learning to sign is critical for deaf children during their language acquisition years, but instead children undergo speech training, lip-reading classes, and sometimes cochlear implant rehabilitation, resulting in language deprivation and long term cognitive and social consequences. 
3. I had the opportunity to chat with Bappaditya Mukherjee over dinner and learn how a 3 year effort navigating India’s legal system to ensure transgender identification, was only a chapter in a 30 year journey championing social justice, and advocating LGBT rights. 
4. With Rohit who leads Apni Shala. I had only ever seen Rohit facilitating sessions or on video calls before. We discussed our experiences at TISS, the big “So What”. Rohit shared how he eventually got around to starting Apni Shala, I’m looking forward to visiting and spending some time with the students there.
5. With Dream a Dream’s confident, inspired, “Young People” at the gathering, who allowed me to sit with them at/after lunch as they joked, laughed and shared their stories with me. Made me miss being in a classroom.

To close, some things that stood out to me as learnings/food for thought are as follows:

1.  We all feel like we lack some privileges. Yet we all partake in and benefit from prevailing narratives, often at the expense of others. Can we hold this paradox? Can we take responsibility and constructive action?
2. Something that I think needs further investigation is whether education is a key lever towards enabling thriving children. The rhetoric at CTS seemed to say education is liberation but it isn’t liberating so many. I felt like the overall call was for more kind and inclusive people in general, beyond education. Perhaps the institution of education as we know it is dated and defunct.
3. On redefining success, this was where I landed at the end of CTS:
   From- Achievement of money, respect, intelligence
   To- A sense of community & belonging and the pursuit of independent interests for interests sake.
4. Everyone’s lived reality is so different. You can spend a lifetime trying to be truly inclusive and you’ll still have a ways to go but it will be a lifetime well spent.

CTS brings together a diverse group of people, from students, to teachers, to government officials, funders, NGO leaders, and more, as each of their decisions and actions has a role to play in creating an inclusive and thriving world for children.
So glad I could attend, hope to continue to engage meaningfully with this dialogue towards Thriving Youth. Big thanks to T4D and Dream a Dream for the opportunity to attend.

Consider reading the following books! I will have a copy of each soon, happy to share!

• When We Thrive, Our World Thrives : Stories of Young People Growing Up With Adversity
• Weaving Wholeness

Also if you’ve read till here (how kind of you) you must read Suchetha’s blog which reflects a more seasoned and informed perspective on the 3 days.