new delhi in dakshinpuri a silent revolution has been going on since the past one year local residents especially women and children an artist and an ngo have teamed up to reclaim a park that was littered with garbage and was overrun by criminals and gamblers the park will soon be developed aesthetically and will have a central pool separate enclosures for women and children an amphitheatre and more residents of j block in dakshinpuri in the past one year have also been indulging in an unusual hobby drawing for many its the first time theyve put pen to paper after the halcyon days of childhood their goal to come up with a dream park a dream thats going to become a reality by october this year part of a community project funded by the foundation of indian contemporary art fica the mcd park at dakshinpuri could well be delhis first attempt at public art put together by a local community sreejata roy activist and artist who won the grant for the project from fica said its an attempt to involve the community to have a shared space that has evolved from ideas contributed by residents resulting in a public art that can be claimed by all hence the frequent drawing sessions with local residents to glean from them what constitutes their dream parkits not been an easy task roy said reclaiming the park from garbage and antisocial elements wasnt easy especially as in the beginning even the residents were wary of the artists motive it was only after months of discussions that residents started accepting that i had no other motive than involving them in the project recalls roy what helped roy perhaps was her involvement with ankur an ngo that specializes in alternatives to education the ngo has been working in the community for some years now earlier the park was littered with garbage and in the evening it was a haven for drug addicts and gamblers and it took almost a year to reclaim it the women were the motivating factor winning the men over was possible only because the women and later the youth of the area put their support behind the project said the artist constant vigil had to be maintained so that antisocial elements could not return even as local residents made a conscious effort to stop others from throwing garbage in the parkthe result work on the plan for the park has already started with the help of local residents all the construction work is being undertaken by local contractors even as the work is being overseen by a group of 10 children aged between 1016 years said roy this group of children has been the core group which is working on the project apart from the women added roy the ideas for what features the park will have have come from local residents roy says that workshops were held over the past year from ideation to drawing to determine how the park