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Author: Admin

Blog, Painting

Collaborative Painting!

Deepam 1st Anniversary celebrations kicked off with a ‘Collaborative Painting Workshop’ on Saturday and Sunday. Students at 3 of our centres – Olcott School , Pudiyathor and Besant Nagar Community center had a lot of fun splashing the colors on the canvas. Over 40 students participated in this activity. The kids enjoyed themselves immensely – their creativity and team work was on display as they turned the blank canvas into a piece of art .

A big thanks to Archana and Balaji – They helped take this concept from an ‘Idea on Paper’ to ‘Painting on Canvas’ !! They planned this event well, from buying the right materials / coming up with a ‘workable theme’ to coordinating with the other volunteers and kids, to ensure the event was a success. Thanks to all the volunteers, who worked along with the kids , got their hands dirty with the paint and brought shape to the painting.

Here are some of the pictures













Blog, Deepam, pudiyathor

Pudiyathor – a new chapter begins.

Saturday afternoon saw 10 volunteers of Deepam head to Pudiyathor in Besant Nagar. We went there prepared for an ice-breaker to interact with the children. We didn’t need that, they were the most lively (and extremely noisy) group who were eager to climb on us to catch our attention. Pudiyathor is a community center for the children who belong to the adjoining slum. About 30-40 kids of all age groups from toddlers to college kids frequent the center and use this facility whether it be hanging out on weekends for different classes/activities or group studies.

We were introduced to Pudiyathor by Manickam (a senior of KK’s from BITS). Maniks and his father run the show at this centre providing the children with whatever is necessary. They are doing an awesome job for these children by providing them a place to learn new and different things, a place to be themselves, a place to dream and see a wonderful world beyond. The entire team at Deepam is extremely excited and looking forward to being a part of Pudiyathor.

We played a few games with the children with the volunteers enthusiastically joining in. We did the good cop-bad cop routine with Paras and Archana being bad cops as they took on the job of shushing the kids to control the noise level. Balaji and Meera were the good cops who were breaking all the ground rules set by those two. Vijay got the most cheers. All he had to do was just introduce himself! That was because of his namesake in the tamil film industry. Vinay, Swetha and Pramodh completed the set of 10.

As always, the enthusiasm and eagerness of the children towards computers was quite visible in the way they crowded around Paras’s laptop.

For the next 5 months, Sundays 2-4pm at Pudiyathor is open to everyone to volunteer in teaching these children the basics of computers, general awareness and english knowledge.

Blog, Government Schools

Teaching in Govt Schools

Hey Guys,
This story should settle the debate on ‘teaching in Govt Schools’ – I heard this from someone ( who teaches physics for class 11 / 12 at a Govt School in Coimbatore ). One of the most wonderful stories about a government official.
This one is about Karmegam, the C.E.O ( chief educational officer ) of Coimbatore , probably between 2007 and 2008. He was officer incharge of Government schools in this region.
  • He worked most days from 9 am to 1 am 
  • He would do random checks on Govt schools – Once he went to a rural school, as a saree-vendor. Teachers rushed in to take a look at the stock, during school hours.. no prizes for guessing on what happened after..
  • He made sure all govt schools had computers installed. He even gave away laptops to the schools – All the HM ( headmaster / headmistress ) were to email daily reports on teacher attendance , students performance and many more to the education dept
  • Daily reports were emailed out to schools – reports on checks done on schools by the ‘flying’ squad. He would land up in schools unannounced and would check on the class and the students. He would never tolerate any negligence of work. He took people to task on the spot ..
  • He brought in a ‘teacher rating’ system for the govt schools – All teachers would be graded relatively , across the region. The bottom rung were dealt with severely. 
  • He held an exam across the govt schools in the region, to test students’ capabilities. The ones who were unable to meet the basic criterion were provided with extra coaching, to bring them up to speed
  • He would meet with most of the teachers personally, to understand the issues, through a townhall meeting !! All the non performing teachers, were dealt with in front of the entire teaching community!!
  • Whenever he was offered a gift, he would look for the nearest kid in the school , to give it away !!! When he was offered more than a lakh, as a reward for his efforts, he just donated that money for a non profit foundation 🙂
  • And this is the best… he sent his kids to a government school !
With more such people , am sure Deepam will have to look for a new cause to support !!!
P.S The person who mentioned this, was one of the teachers who met with him personally.
Blog, Kids

Weekend Notes..

I spent my last weekend at the besant nagar beach, playing frisbee for the Chennai team at a National Tournament. This post is not about that. But about the interesting event that happened during the games..
Some of the kids who we teach at Olcott School and at Nalamdana centre, wandered near the playing field. With the games being held under the lights and the Saturday evening attracting a lot of crowd, i spotted a couple of our kids at the game watching us play. No doubts on who and which team got the loudest cheers and support from these kids!!! and at one point, when we were trailing the opponent team, these kids were rooting for us and during the breaks they were with me, ‘offering support’ !!! 
I continue to benefit from these little kids. As Ram pointed out the other day, it would be arrogant if i claim that am ‘giving back’, as i seem to be the one who is benefitting!!!
Blog, Uncategorized

Children’s Day 2008!

The Deepam volunteers had a small surprise planned for the kids at Olcott High School and Nalamdana Centre on Children’s day.After a chain of mail and contributions of ideas and resources from the volunteers, we decided to give each student a goodie bag. Each goodie bag had a notebook and pen ( Paras from Infosys wanted to give away these as a homage to his grandfather),pencils and an option of either a tennis ball or watercolor (KK’s idea)

Thanks to everyone at Deepam for making it possible. We owe the smile of the kids to each one of you 🙂

Blog, Impact

The little Joys!

The greatest satisfaction and happiness comes out of making some real impact with the things we do – Ever since i quit my regular job, the need to make a real impact is what drives me largely, to do things that i do now.
So, when Meera , an active volunteer at Deepam, e-mailed this on our e-group, it was a huge boost to the small effort a bunch of us had made thus far at Deepam ( Despite, me knowing that Meera was being a bit nice to us :), given her talents )
Here is the mail
Subject : How Deepam landed me ( Meera ) a scholarship
” The interview went well, but there were a couple of determining factors. Here’s how – 

Interviewer- So Meera, your work ex all seems ok. Also, we sometimes need to use complex software which is unknown to us. Right from our faculty, to the staff and students, we might need some instructing to use the software.
Have you ever had a chance where you taught people to use new software or technologies? 
Meera -This is really exciting. I, in fact really love teaching, especially computers/software. 
‘ I gave them a brief gist of Deepam and what we do here. I told her that we are a small group working to make literacy for lesser privileged children a reality. That we, apart from teaching them to use computers,also try to work on so many concurrent things like building their english, trying to get materials ready,and setting up a system for them, give certificates, encourage them to questions, read up on news.. etc ” 
She ( Interviewer ) was very impressed. 
Finally, this is what she ( Interviewer ) said – These kids, am sure are smart, and catch these software and concepts real quick. If you can teach lesser privileged kids, you surely need to stretch a bit more and be patient with our faculty and students here, and I’m sure you can teach them too. This is a really good job you are doing here. 
This came from the head of the department! Considering that this department is a behavioral science department, they were all the more impressed, and knew the impact of such voluntary work in the society. They told me they’d keep me informed about the position after the weekend. But, they gave me a call 30 minutes after the interview and told me I got the position. I was elated. 
The Deepam factor sure gave me a definite edge over the others.
I know working in Deepam gives immense satisfaction, but additionally for me, it helped in landing me a job + assistantship 🙂 🙂  “

Thanks Meera!!
It is wonderful having you with us!!

Blog, Donation

Yaaay !!

Am very happy to post this one – One of the Sneham ( Infosys ) members Mr.Nandakumar donated a computer last week. We installed this computer in our classroom at Uroor kuppam area in besant nagar. A big thanks to him – since the computer was in good working condition and came with a table as well, it can be put to use from the next class onwards.

Here is the photo of the computer installed in the class room.

Blog, Olcott School

The Connect

The Connect is a ‘high’ – Like the dancing the right moves to the beat , timing the ball perfectly well with the cricket bat , Pacing a 15 km run well over the course and sprinting to the finish, picking the right song for that car drive at night, packing the right “to-do’s” in a day – never too much or little , business meetings going the way we’d prepared for and many more.

Yesterday i found a few more connects and high’s during the Deepam class at Olcott School.

  • The kid we taught at the school trying to reply in English – His Tamil response and the sentence being translated and formulated in English by him ( and the joy on his face when we said he was right !! )
  • This other kid ( after being “talked to ” by me ) going back to his computer and working along with his team mates and helping them with tricks of using Word processor
  • The class listening to Basu teach them and stopping him to ask questions !
  • Kids coming to class on time and finishing the ‘home work ‘
The little joys on saturday afternoon !