Deepam > 2009 > June

Month: June 2009

Blog, Uncategorized

Scholarship given by PRERNA

Hi Folks,

If you have come across any bright student coming from a poor financial background who has finished his / her 10th standard this year (April 2009) and scored more than 80%, please ask him / her to get in touch with the NGO – Prerana (supported by Infy foundation).

The NGO is conducting a written test and those who clear the test will be eligible for financial help for their further studies. Please ask/help the students to contact the people mentioned below to get the form.

No. 80, Shubhakar, 44th Cross,1st ‘A’ Main Road, Jayanagar 7th Block, Bengalooru

Ms. Saraswati 99009 06338

Mr.Shivkumar 99866 30301 (Hanumanthnagar office)

Ms.Bindu 99645 34667 (Yeshwantpur office)

In case you do not know anyone as such, please pass on the info. Someone might be in need of this help desperately.

Blog, Uncategorized

In need of Computers

Deepam for its classes is in need of computers. Any PC, a Laptop or a Desktop will do. If you would like to give away your computer for a good cause, please call:

+91 98842 77487 Balaji (Chennai)
+91 99003 96775 – Meera (Bangalore)
+91 99720 96773 – Vijay (Bangalore)
Thanks.
Blog, Deepam, Kakkan Colony

Deepam KC Centre – 3 Stories

These 3 stories made our day at the KC centre on Saturday –
  • Community Participation – Getting the support of the community where we teach, is a good indicator of our progress. On saturday, a political party had planned a meeting in the locality and had brought out the loud speakers. With our teaching centre close by, the voice inside the class was drowned by the songs, which were belted away. When we requested the organisers to ‘stop the music’, they readily agreed – I even overheard a guy commenting that they should co-operate with Deepam and allow us continue the good work !! Comments like these make the day 🙂
  • Class participation by the kids – The participation of the kids, at the saturday’s class, would put most of the class’ i’ve attended in school / college to shame. Meera Sivakumar did a fantastic job ‘ facilitating / teaching ‘ at the class . She prepared for the class and the intensity she brought to the class was a lesson for the rest of us. She was smart in engaging the kids – getting kids to read the slides / asking questions , keeping the kids on their toes. The passion / energy she brought to the class was soon reflected on the students. In a short while, the entire student group was participating in the class. Just reinforces the belief, that a good teacher can ignite a million minds..
  • Word spreads : We have new students joining our class every weekend. Its a happy feeling when a student brings his friend , to join our sessions. Hope this stays .
Blog, Deepam, pudiyathor

Deepam Sessions at Pudiyador

Date : June 21st, Sunday
Time : 11 am to 1 pm
Venue: Vannanthurai, Besant Nagar

Agenda: “Know your students” form
PPT of Random Pictures
Personality Slide on Roger Federer
English exercises
Recap of MS-paint and MS-word.

Contact person: Anupama (9003269018)

Please confirm your participation and please note the change in timing.

thanks and regards,
Anupama

Blog, Inspiration

Making India Shine – Thomas.L.Friedman

The Shanti Bhavan school, with 160 students, was started by Abraham George, one of those brainy Indians who made it big in high-tech America. He came back to India with a single mission: to start a privately financed boarding school that would take India’s most deprived children and prove that if you gave them access to the same technologies and education that have enabled other Indians to thrive in globalization, they could, too.

I visited Mr. George’s school in February, and he took me to a classroom where 8-year-old untouchables were learning to use Microsoft Word and Excel. They were having their computer speed-typing lesson, so I challenged the fastest typist to a race. She left me in the dust — to the cheering delight of her classmates.


Initiative and execution of ideas like these that will make India shine!!! Deepam is surely going that way !!

Cheers
kk

Via : Meera Shivakumar

Blog, Deepam, Kakkan Colony

Our New Centre- KC centre

Another Centre added to our existing Centres -Deepam spreads literacy to the kids at Kakkan Colony (KC centre) in Besant Nagar from June this year.Here are some of the pics from our first classes at this centre.For any suggestions or to join us kindly mail us on [email protected]

The students and the volunteers in an interactive session on Sports

Chandana trying to do her best to enlighten them about Roger Federer- The Personality of the Day

Meera helping the kids view the video of the latest French Open.Below are our Volunteers – Shiva, Arun,Chandana and Karthik (KK) helping the students fill out the registration forms.

Blog, Uncategorized

Roger Vaaram


1.Archana present

2.Arun present
3.Baasu present
4.chandana present
4.kay kay present
5.Meera Present
6.Priya Present
7.shiva present
8..Villu Vijay present
13th june saturday 2009 saw the KC centre overflowing with children bubbling with energy.As soon as we entered the K.C centre,”Tailor akka” said “from now on,every one should be here right on time,and no late commers shall be entertained,and an answer retaliated immidiately saying the volunteers were late!!!” .Archana tried hard to keep the children under her control.The very first activity had the children talking about their favourite sports,and their favourite sports ikons,while most of them voted for sachin,there were a few fans for dhoni,yuvraj and dravid.However the love for tennis was lacking.
Meera provided with us an enlightening session on the life of frederer with a video,his career path and his acheivements.she also went on to explain about what tennis is,what are grand slams all about,and what it means to be a winner of a grand slam on a clay court tournament.
Having learned a little about tennis,kids had their morale boosted with concepts of “Never say die principle of life” and “Failiure is the stepping stone of life”.With some playing over,children were tuned (SUN T.V Dinesh got pinched) to some serious thinking of what is a human body,its input devices,its output devices,its processing devices and its memory and the corresponding parts of a computer.
Meera was not satisfied and started asking kids what makes computers different from a laptopand what makes a T.V different from computers,and children picked up signals really fast and answered really fast.After a lot of Whys,kids started filling up the hard copy of the registration forms,during which KK,chandana,shiva and Arun sat down with the kids helping them out.Meanwhile our king KK as usual started making his connection and bonding with the kids and mentoring them.
After registration,children were released,and the observations made were shared among volunteers,and it was found that quite a few of them had problems relating figures and the sounds of alphabets and KK suggested it might be some indication of Dislexia and it was adviced that volunteers in other centres too try and find such children and take extra care of them.
Also volunteers were to function more as mentors,someone who instills great thoughts in them,creates good habbits in them etc.From now on,lets make it a practise to ask children to read newspaper on a daily basis,lets start from tamil papers and move onto english papers.lets also ask them to come back with their favourite news of the week every week.
ok,its time to make a move….head count 1……..2……………3………….4………5…………6………7…… aaaaaaaah where is the eighth person? who is missing? well its baasu!!!,Ada paavingala,proxy puttin here also vaa?
Blog, Uncategorized

KC initiation.


The Saturday 6th june saw half a dozen volunteers of Deepam head to kakkan colony in Besant Nagar for the induction of the 4th centre of deepam. We had planned to have an ice breaker session,but the children were quite themselves and did not need it,so we had them sit in groups of four and know about each other.And to our surprise we had children who had great aims in life like DOCTOR saranya,IPS dinesh,CAPTAIN praveen and a lot more,about 19 of them.According to kk’s sugesstion,we have decided to call them with those occupational names for the rest of the sessions to keep them motivated to keep coming back and realise their dreams.we plan to have 1year session similar to that of olcott for the KC centre,and do it every saturday from 4.30 to 6.30


We were introduced to KC centre by Basu,A senior from ANNA UNIVERSITY. Archana ran the show at this boxing centre elaborating the kids about what we were planning to do for the next one year,while she committed herself to teach the kids to work with computers,the children offered to teach her speak tamil.Archana played the ring master’s role of disciplining the kids,while kk and the others were breaking those “rules”.
As one of the missions of Deepam,the children did come out of their shell and came forward to ask us volunteers what we did and what were aims,and named archana as tailor akka,shiva as hotel master shiva,
and the rest of us left unnamed.chandana and ravindra a young budding entreprenuer completed the bunch of 6.

It was decided over the end of the session that we would not have children go home with a home work,rather we would have them come back with a thought every week.shiva suggested that we could arrange for some refreshments after the class,to keep the children coming back.

As always the enthusiasm level with the kids never soared,and they did some brilliant guess work trying to figure out the multipersonality disorder with computers having different names such as desktop,laptop and palmtops.
For the next 1 year, Saturdays 4.30-6.30pm will see kakkan colony colony centre bustling with activity and is open to everyone to volunteer in teaching these children the basics of computers, general awareness,english knowledge and personality development.
Blog, Deepam

Know About Deepam #2

Is Deepam aiming at replacing teachers in Schools ?
No, not at all. Deepam, infact, complements students’ learning through the teachers. Deepam believes that good teachers at school can never be replaced. They get students inspired and capture their attention. They have the best opportunity to shape the students. Most of the teachers do a fantastic job with meagre rewards. Deepam aims to provide a little bit extra that a school teacher is unable to provide, as a result of workloads / other demands. Deepam enables students to be ‘well rounded’ on top of the foundation that a school teacher has laid.
I am a part of the Deepam google group and i want to contribute. But i don’t know how.
  1. Mail your questions to the googlegroup and one of the group members will answer
  2. Visit class’ – You will understand the way Deepam operates and you will know how you can contribute
  3. Just hit reply and respond to mails requesting for ‘volunteers’
  4. Just hit reply to this mail 🙂
What is required from me, to teach at a centre ?
  1. Enthusiasm and interest to work with kids
  2. Two hours to spare on 1 day, during the weekend + commute time
  3. 15 mins of preparation before the class
I would like to help in other activities as well. What do i do ?
  1. You can help in fund raising / partnerships etc – Please talk to Rahul / Meera
  2. You can help in designing curriculum – Please talk to Vijay / Archana
  3. Anything at all – Just mail the group
For Know About Deepam #1 – Please go here https://www.deepam.in/2009/05/all-about-deepam.html