TISA COMMUNICATION WORKSHOP 2018, DELHI

TISA Delhi SHG hosted Communication Workshop on June 23-24, 2018. Mr. Shailender Venaiyak took this initiative and managed all operations very efficiently. Mr. Ashish Agarwal conducted all the activities in the workshop. This workshop could not have benefited more than 30 PWS without these two gentlemen. Few of the senior members, Vishal Gupta, Sikander Singh, Ravi Jagga participated in the workshop, hosted a couple of activities to make it more fruitful. 

You can watch the glimpse of this workshop in the video below, prepared by Ms. Aashima Gogia.

Day 1

The first day started with the registration, few people broke the ice without icebreaker activity and started the introduction in small groups.

To break the ice for everyone, we started with the introduction. A fun element was added in that. People were asked to stand up, keep moving in the room, and introduce themselves to the person nearby. After a few minutes, they were asked to change the person. To add more fun, people were asked to introduce using bouncing and prolongation and whoever knows the techniques could start. After the activity, everyone was asked that how many names they could recall to check their listening skills. Only one person was able to recall all five names. This was followed by a formal introduction by each person.

Ashish hosted the second session to introduce TISA, ground rules and techniques. Ashish explained the techniques namely, coastal breathing, bouncing, pausing and prolongation. In coastal breathing, he explained how easier it is to tell three words in a single breath. He demoed and asked each person to practice it one by one.

In the next activity, people were divided into four groups. Each group was handed a poster. Each group had an admin. The Admin asked few questions to members in the group and member was asked to answer the question after eating a jelly candy which took 2-4 seconds to eat. It helped to take proper pauses. In the second round, four mirrors were arranged. They were asked to practice in front of a mirror in a pair. In the pair, one asked and another one answered. In the third round, each group had to perform a play based on the poster they got. They were also required to use any one technique from voluntary stuttering, bouncing, prolongation and pausing. The office play used voluntary stuttering wonderfully and inspired all. One team became so busy in the roleplay that they forgot to use any of the techniques. It was great fun to listen to Sholay dialogues, the debate among political parties with beautiful stammering voices.

After the lunch break, we started our session with an icebreaker activity. In this, we commanded the group to not follow the facilitator’s instruction until TISA is said just before his command. Here, many failed in first attempt only and we gave them another chance as it was their first time and again started the game. Few were continuously failing in every attempt but then after a few times, few others became very consistent. When the facilitator started giving many commands together then many were failing as they were not able to connect quickly to the command but few others were consistent then, he did some tricks and many got stuck. At last, only two were left and both were declared winners as they both were very quick in following commands with concentration.

Next, we decided to divide all of them into small groups as per their month of birth. For instance, those born in the months of Jan and Feb formed Group 1, Mar and April formed group 2 and so on. We divided 34 persons into 6 groups with 4 to 6 persons in one group. Now everyone was asked to call anyone while another will record his/her video. At that time, many made excuses due to network connectivity in the basement. To address the problem, Ashish arranged numbers having Jio sim and provided them to those facing the issue. In addition he gave his own phone for better conduction of activity. Moreover, if a group had only one phone for the activity then it was used one by one for the calling and another phone was arranged for recording the video.

Then the tea break was announced. After the tea break, though there was stranger talk activity was planned but due to extremely sunny weather, we conducted an indoor activity where people had to come to the stage and share one habit. Everyone participated in this activity. Everybody got a chance to speak on multiple topics in this activity. According to the agenda, official time was 6 PM but we extended our session to 7 PM in order to give an opportunity to more people to speak.

Day 2

The first day was very hectic not only with back to back activities but also full of new knowledge or I would rather say wisdom. It taught values of TISA, techniques, the meaning of acceptance, and all the activities reinforced those values.

The second day needed peace in the mind so that it could acquire more knowledge and it gets refreshing energy for the second day what sleep did not give. Only meditation can give this. The beauty of the session cannot be imagined when an experienced person like Dr. Sethi took the session. Initially, he explained the concept of Vipassana meditation and how can it help to deal with stammering mindset. It was followed by 10 minutes of Anapana meditation session. Everyone was feeling refreshing after the meditation session.

The second activity was planned to give a platform for public speaking and to instill a feeling to appreciate the people around us. All PWS were divided into the teams and all teams had two people. People were asked to share their story to each other. After knowing their teammate well, people had to share the story of the teammate to everyone. Ashish and Shailendra hosted this session. Ashish gave on the spot feedback to people and asked to implement the feedback. People were feeling very happy after implementing those points.

The third activity was the activity of the workshop, Metro Activity. The objective of the activity was to gain acceptance and release our mind from the fears we are carrying. People were divided in the team of 4. Every team had one person who had prior experience of voluntary stammering. Everyone was very enthusiastic and reached Metro station. Enthusiasm was at its peak, a train came and boarded the train and no heartbeat was at its peak. What to say? How to say? The experienced person in the group gathered the courage and initiated. He stood in one corner so that he could address more people and started. “Hello everyone, we are from The Indian Stammering Association. It is an association of the people who stammer. We all stammer. We conduct Meetups and Workshops. This is an activity of a workshop to spread awareness. If you know anyone who stammers, you can tell them about our organization. Thanks for your patience.“ People were supportive, they came forwarded to ask more questions. Everyone addressed this message to tens of people. For many people, it was more adventurous than doing bungee jumping.

The fourth and final activity was to share the communication workshop experiences. There was a smile, hope, and enthusiasm on everyone’s face. Everyone thanked Shailender and Ashish to host such a useful workshop.

Prepared by
Shailender Venaiyak, Vikas Ranga, Aashima Gogia