Dastaan-e-Qaleen: A Curriculum for Child Friendly Spaces is a curriculum and video story series developed by Leher, with support from UNICEF, for children aged 6–11 years participating in Child Friendly Spaces in Kashmir. It was created to address the psychosocial and developmental needs of children living in communities affected by conflict, providing opportunities for them to relax, express themselves, build resilience, and develop essential life skills.
The curriculum brings together five thematic areas: Self and Self-Worth; Positive Emotions, Appreciation and Positive Reinforcement; Dreams; Diversity, Gender, Equality and Equity; and Child Safeguarding. Through art, stories, puppetry, games, reflection, and interactive activities, children are supported in understanding themselves, recognising their strengths, expressing emotions, imagining and pursuing aspirations, questioning social norms and inequalities, and recognising unsafe situations to seek help.
The curriculum also includes sessions for parents and community members, simple evaluation tools, and a series of locally contextualised video stories that reinforce the learning. Its development drew on desk research, field visits and extensive consultation with CFS facilitators, coordinators, volunteers and other stakeholders, ensuring that the content was grounded in the lived realities of children in Kashmir.