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Author: Admin

Blog, Uncategorized

Pudiyador – Next Steps

Dear all,

The heat is on! and while the children are cooling off in their summer vacatio/native places, this is the perfect time to set the curriculum and plan for the next year. June 2010 – March 2011.

The Adyar-Pudiyador center has varied needs. Some
1) We have two desktop computers there, and we have access to three (yes three!) more laptops that the UK center is going to hand over.
2) We have children across the age group- from 4-5 standard students to 11-12th standard! We also have some toddlers looking at the screen in curiosity
3) The children there are fairly confident in all the MS office suite.
4) Sessions every weekend on a sunday 11am-1pm. Time slot may change.

Request all volunteers and interested people to please lend a hand to set the curriculum for the year.

Plan of Action for the next year
1) Prepare a bunch of confident english speakers
2) Exposure to the internet and making presentations, gathering data from the internet.
3) Activities (once every quarter)
4) Divide the class into 2-3 batches and cater specifically to their needs.

This year, we aim to build a strong curriculum and a stronger volunteer team.
Please get in touch with me if you can contribute in any manner. Suggestions most welcome!

thanks,
Anupama
anupama[dot]s3[at]gmail[dot]com

Blog, Leadership Program 2010

Deepam Leadership Program 2010

Hello Friends,

Deepam has taken small steps towards educating children in the last couple of years. The small improvements are showing and presently, we have some organisations interested in supporting Deepam, financially and otherwise . Now is an interesting point – we need to take a more structured approach, to educating children. Thats the best way to make more impact. This gives us the best chance to be consistent at what we are doing and improve at it.
Deepam Leadership program is a way to contribute to Deepam, in a more organised and structured manner. This will be a 2 year program. You will work on centre organising / fundraising / Communications & Marketing / Volunteer Programs and more. Each of us will be working on a specific role. At the end of 2 years, you can move to another role or continue on a ‘mentoring / advisory’ role.
This program is a good way to learn about NGO operations / understand non-profits better. If you have plans of working in the non-profit sector in the future, this program is a good stepping stone. Also, if you are looking at learning leadership skills, this platform offers you the opportunity. And ofcourse, if you have a leadership background and want to work on Deepam programs, please do reach to us 🙂
Deepam Leadership Program is an opportunity to ‘Learn by DOING’ .
If you are looking to contribute more to Deepam – this is your chance. What is required from you ?
  1. Interest / passion to teach and see children improve
  2. Have atleast 6 hours free time per week, for Deepam
  3. If you are looking to learn / improve leadership skills or have been a leader, please do apply
Interested people can mail me at kk@deepam in, with answers to 3 questions. If you want more clarity on the role, please feel free to email me
  1. Which role do you want to apply to ? Roles – Centre Organising , Fundraising , Communications & Marketing , Volunteer Programs , Events , Technology Team
  2. Why do you want to work on the role ?
  3. How will this help / benefit you ?
Thanks
kk

Blog, Uncategorized

2009 Deepam Fellow

Deepam Fellow is an award conceptualised to honour the people who have made a significant contribution to furthering the cause of education for less-privileged children at Deepam. This award will be given to 3 people every year.

Deepam aims to honour 2 types of people through this award
  • People involved in direct teaching & mentorship : Teachers are the people who have an immense opportunity to change the future of the world – by positively influencing the people who will inhabit the world in the future. The best among them will be honoured through the Deepam Fellow award
  • People involved in design & implementation of programs enabling teaching : By designing / implementing a program that enables teachers / children to meet their education goals, people who design / implementation work in tandem with teachers to make an impact on the children. The best among these people will be honoured through the Deepam Fellow award
2009 Deepam Fellow

Deepam is a young organisation and hence, it is important that we have some good leaders amongst us. The 2009 Deepam Fellows have shown a good example of Leadership last year. All 3 of them are passionate about ‘Deepam Idea’ . We are honoured to have the 3 people amongst us

  • Anuradha

    1. Good Leader – Has set up teams wherever she spent her time – UK Centre and Now at VRS Centre
    2. Set up new centre starting process along with Basu
    3. New ideas on evaluating deepam‘s impact – baselined the current batch at VRS ( 1st time at Deepam )
    4. Keeps the volunteers motivated – She herself is high on enthusiasm and always wears a happy smile on her face. No wonder people love to be around with her 🙂
    5. Sometimes, we’ve seen her teach at 2 centres – VRS Centre in the morning and UK centre in the evening 🙂

  • Anupama

    1. Connects with the students very well
    2. Always looks for ways to improve the class and make it more interesting – A typical conversation would start with how the current methods can be changed to make class better. She usually has some suggestions to make / ask . And importantly, in a few weeks, she takes the idea to completion / execution. It is an awesome feeling to see something executed!
    3. Deepam Class at pudiyador has been consistent, in a large way, thanks to Anupama and her team.
    4. With her around, one can be assured that Children are in good mentorship – she takes that extra bit of care to ensure students and volunteers enjoy what they do. It sure reflects in the class at Pudiyador 🙂
  • Srini

    1. When the centre ( KC Centre ) he was teaching was demolished, he worked hard / smart to find a new centre in the locality. When the centre authorities didn’t give Deepam permission to use the centre, he spent his time to build a relationship with the local centre authorities – He was given a duplicate key in a month 🙂
    2. His students call up every saturday to check with him if there is a deepam class. On every festival day, they call up to wish him – what more a teacher can ask for ?
    3. He made himself available to support anyone in Deepam in any possible way – From installing Computers in Pudiyador / VRS , to creating videos on Deepam, to keeping the buzz alive on Facebook and many more.
    4. He brought a ton of energy / passion to Deepam – Most visible during the Deepam childrens day, when he went to all deepam centres, dressed up as a tiger and helped with the tee shirt painting event !
    5. All KC volunteers would agree – he has a way with the students 🙂

Blog, Deepam Annual Day 2010

Thank you note to Deepam from a school teacher!!

A small note from the teacher at the west mambalam school where Deepam teaches at , on the Deepam 2nd Annual day!!!

Thanks to all volunteers!!! Lets make this happen , year after year !!!!

kk

From: latha devi

Date: Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 4:45 PM
Subject: Re:

HI,

LET ME THANK EACH & EVERY PARTICIPANT FOR MAKING DEPPAM’S II YEAR BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION VERY SUCCESSFUL ONE. MY SPECIAL THANKS TO SAIKIREN & DEEPAM’S ENTIRE TEAM.STUDENTS GOT MORE EXCITEMENT, EXPOSURE, JOY & FUN.WE ARE VERY PROUD OF TO SAY THAT THIS IS A FIRST STAGE PROGRAMME TO OUR CHILDREN.


WITH LOTS OF TKS & RGDS

LATHA DEVI.M & TEACHERS

SRI VENKATA NIVASAM PRIMARY SCHOOL,

WEST MAMBALAM, CH-600 033

Blog, Deepam Annual Day 2010

Deepam Annual Day – Thanks!!!!

Hello Friends,

It was a memorable saturday afternoon for all of us at Deepam . The children brought so much energy to the event and am still recovering from the afternoon. The children enjoyed the events , which reflected in their fantastic performances. In the coming days, we will write more about the event – more pictures / videos will be posted on the groups.
The teamwork at Deepam was so evident on that day – to pull off this big event, we had to have so many people working together. When this happens at a completely volunteer driven organisation, it is quite a special feeling 🙂
Here is a big thanks to all the people who joined to help –
  • Gopal Sir – Thanks for helping us get the venue. Couldn’t have asked for better facilities and a more historical place, for our big event
  • Team West Mambalam – Priya , Vasanthi , Arthi , Maduravalli , Bhagirathi , Sriram , Noopuran , Saye and others. I couldn’t believe the children were speaking in such fluent english and came across so confident on stage. Thats a reflection of the work you put in !
  • Radhika / Basu / Archana – Thanks for ensuring all the children had a medal / certificate to take home. All of them were proudly showing off the medals 🙂
  • Team UK Centre – Nisha / Sadhvia / Balaji / Giri and others . Your dedication reflects in the regular turnout of the children.
  • Yashwant / Chandana – Wow! that was some energy on the stage. You guys were in sync with the children & their performances!! You guys stepped into the MC role easily
  • Team KC Centre – Viju , Chandana , Vedavalli , Srini – thanks for co-ordinating the elaborate performance by the children.
  • Team Olcott – Though we couldn’t have performances from them, Thanks Dr.Karthick / kannan / KCG for helping with bringing kids over. Quite difficult to bring a large number of children over and ensuring events went smooth.
  • Sponsors – Thanks to all the sponsors, we could cover all the costs for this event. None of them wanted to be named. Thanks 🙂
  • Team Pudiyador – Sundar / Krishnan / Anupama / Shashi and others. Creative / artistic performances the children. Thanks !
  • KCG college Team – Priya , Radhika , Yuvi and others. There was a lot of energy in your performance.Thanks for taking time to be with the children.
  • Team VRS – Leeba / Anuradha / Pradyot / Abhishek. The little ones floored everyone with their energy !! We had a great start with VRS performance 🙂 – Thanks for organising this one!
  • Supporters / Chief Guest – Thanks for coming over and encouraging our efforts!
  • Photography Team – Sriram , Shankar / Noopuran and others. Thanks for covering this event, in a professional way !
  • Jishnu , Jassim , Swapnil , Priya , Bhagirthi , Bharani, Anbu , Bhargav and others – Thanks for helping with event organising.
and help from many more..
It sure was magical to see the whole event fall in place, with the help of volunteers. We never had any prior rehearsals, but as with all good things – the event exceeded expectations. The stars of the afternoon sure were.. the children & volunteers.
Thanks
karthik

Blog, Deepam Annual Day 2010

Deepam 2nd Annual Day – Tomorrow!

Big day for all of us at Deepam, tomorrow. Calling everyone to come over and celebrate the day with the children !
This event is all about our children – their performances , their felicitation and the people who taught them, our volunteers !
Venue : Dakshinamurthy Auditorium, P S High School , Mylapore ( Opp. R K Mutt )
Date : 20th March, Saturday
Time : 2:00 pm to 5:30 pm

Blog, E Tv, Media

Deepam on E Tv

E TV will air a 16 min program on Deepam – 11-March 2010 ( Episode – 848 )

  • (Yuv Bharath Program ) A feature on Deepam — the Chennai-based NGO which aims at computer literacy for the urban under-privileged kids (16min)

It is on air on the following Etv channels as per the chart given below.

Channel Name – Telecast Time

ETV- Bangla 09.30a.m
ETV-M.P. 10.30a.m 11.30p.m
ETV-U.P. 10.30a.m 11.30p.m
ETV-Bihar 10.30a.m 11.30p.m
ETV-Rajasthan 09.30a.m 12.30a.m ( march 12th )
ETV-2 (Telugu) 11.30p.m 04.30a.m (march 12th )
ETV-Oriya 10.30a.m
ETV-Gujarati 09.30a.m
ETV-Marathi 09.30a.m
ETV-Urdu 10.30a.m 06:30p.m
ETV-Kannada 11:30p.m

Blog, Olcott School, Photography

Photography at Olcott School

Children can never be stereotyped and should never be! Because, you never know when they can pull a surprise on you. It happened at the Olcott School… I’ve not seen this bunch of Children at the school as excited and happy, as they were last saturday, showing off the photos they clicked.

Photos clicked by the children…

Usually, it takes some coaxing to get them to talk – but today was different. We had students enthusiastically come to the front of the class, show us what they clicked, describe the photo and explain how they clicked.

Usually, the children wait for the ‘school bell’ at 12:30 pm – today , was different . We had to close the class at 12:45 , against their wishes!!! The children were hanging around at the class, eager to show what they clicked and also to listen & learn from the volunteers on photography.

These sessions drive home the point real hard – Make learning more fun for the Children. Every child is curious and wants to learn. Through an activity that engages the children , our class must utilise their natural curiosity and enthusiasm, to make them ‘learn’.

This method is not just for Photography – Can we extend the fun learning to English & Computers too ?

Btw, The activity for the day was to split the class into groups of 4/5 students. Each group was guided by a volunteer with a Digital Camera. Children were free to go around the school and click photos on 2 themes – what they like about the school and what they do at school.

Blog, NGOs India

Education NGOs in India – Segmentation / Big Picture

A few weeks ago, i had met Dr.Balaji Sampath , to understand the ‘Big Picture’ in the Education NGO space in India. It helped me get a lot of clarity on the way forward for Deepam
According to him there are 3 models working well in India, presently
  1. Asha / Aid ( US Chapter) – Fundraising organisations – they primarily raise money. their impact measured by the number of organisations they support – For example : 200 orgs supported in India in 2009 etc
  2. Pudiyador / Sukrupa – Centre running orgs – They ensure Kids come to class. They hire teachers or invite volunteer orgs to teach. They are supported by fundraising orgs. Measure of impact – no of kids reached out, improvement in their standards
  3. Content Orgs – Eureka books / Pratham books – These orgs primarily focus on curriculum . They research on the best content / curriculum and provide this for free / at a low cost to NGO’s

  • The 4th type of Organisation – he says are slowly emerging – Deepam is one such. They go out and teach the kids in a focussed way. They can take content from ‘content orgs‘ , go teach at ‘centre running orgs‘ , which are funded byFundraising orgs

According to him, the value that Deepam has created is enormous – So far, the NGO space has been missing “consistency” and “focus” among the volunteer teachers. Someone going to a centre at the alloted time and teach the kids, a specific subject. He says this is quite rare and wanted us to build on what we have created so far.
He says when all 4 of the above is done by 1 organisation in the social sector, everything goes for a toss. Balajihas tried doing all of this in his initial days and failed. Finally, he decided to focus on content and content development.

Anyone here has a better way to segment the Education NGOs in India ? Would love to hear from you.

Blog, Uncategorized

Talent Event at Pudiyador – Feb 14th 2010

Thanks to the our special invitee Subha for coming to Pudiyador center over the weekend. She paid rapt attention to every item, I am sure she had a hard time saying which was No1, so everyone were declared winners.


Silambattam: You have seen silambattam. For the uninitiated, a long stick is rotated skillfully held away from the body in a dextorous and beautiful manner. These children went one step further, they tied cloth to the ends of the sticks, doused it in kerosene and set them on fire. We had an amazing fire display! Five of these kids aged 10-14 years were on fire with their display!
Then, they laid a stick (lit completely on fire) and jumped over it, somersault etc. You should’ve been there! All of us were going ooh-aah for this one.


Skit/Mime/Drama: The children had make-up on their faces with powder and paint. Set on the theme of creating awareness, about 6 boys mimed scenes like throwing the banana peel down, talking on the cellphone while driving, hanging out of a train, then they reenacted the scene depicting the proper way of doing this. Another mime was played out based on religious unity. To each of these scenes, the children did their own personal comedic touch. It was a very good one and apt!



Dance: The younger girls did two popular dances, the older girls did one dance. I must say the bharatnatyam classes(that take place just before the Deepam sessions on sunday mornings) are having quite an effect. Such beauty and grace in their steps and movements. Kudos!
The smallest kids (about 4-6) entertained us too.
Sathish is invariably the dancing star of Pudiyador (He is Hemesh’s friend and classmate btw)

The credit for encouraging the children and bringing out their talent lies with the Pudiyador people. Their dedication to bring the best to these kids is outstanding. These kids were coached in dance and skit by Mr.Lenin. I have noticed the children here are so confident in their speech and manner. Last year’s talent event was amazing, but this year topped that too!
I consider myself very lucky to have been a part of this rare performance.

Check out more pictures of the event at Pudiyador and other centers on our Deepam Facebook page (login not required)