Volunteer of the Month :)

Couple of months ago, i got a mail from a guy in 2nd year college enquiring about opportunities to volunteer at Deepam. He was coming back to india on a 2 month vacation from NUS Singapore and wanted to volunteer ‘full time’ during the 2 months. Archana and I met up with him at a coffee shop and discussed undergraduate studies in India / Singapore mainly and Deepam, on the side. He offered to contribute to the curriculum team and ensure all our class’ had a structure to it. He said he would start the next day and visit the deepam centres. On my way back, i was thinking how could a young guy who topped academics all his life, who lived in another country for sometime relate to Deepam and the kids we teach and offer meaning contribution.
And i didn’t have to wait too long to know the answer – in a week, he pinged Archana and me, so regularly on Gtalk, that i had to run away !!! ( to earn my living!! ). Not that he was ‘time wasting’ in any way – he was always bouncing ideas on improving curriculum , fund raising , PR and many more. And on most days during his stay in Chennai, he would work on the ideas he suggested and action them. He worked along with Archana and structured the computer curriculum for Deepam, in no time. He also turned up to teach at Olcott School / KC centres and started to interact with the kids. Slowly, he found new areas to contribute and was contributing everywhere!!! He , on his own initiative, got in touch with NDTV Hindu / local newspapers , to do a story on Deepam. He never discussed getting in touch with NDTV with anyone, till he brought them to do a story on us. He was more ‘action’ and less ‘talk’ in areas where he didn’t need support.
He didn’t stop there. He worked with the ‘web team’ to do a new website for us ( which will be ready soon ), worked along with Meera to publish a ‘Deepam newsletter’ and many many more. It was such a pleasant experience for all of us at Deepam, to work with him. He had some fantastic ideas and more importantly ‘Executed’ them as well. All of his ideas are ‘do-able’ and was ‘rooted’ in reality. It was amazing to see this coming from a 20 year old.
Deepam surely benefited through Abhinav and in a lot ways, he exhibits a quality that Deepam aims to follow – More ‘action’ / ‘execution’ / ‘doing’ than just discussing ideas. He is our volunteer of the month 🙂

Abhinav, with the children at UK Centre.
Receving the volunteer of the month award from Ram, our founder.
Celebrating Abhinav’s birthday 🙂

Deepam Sessions Aug 8-9th weekend

Centre Day Timings Center Location Centre Lead Contact
Uroor Kuppam 8 Aug 2-30 to 4-30 pm Near Besant Nagar Beach Balaji 9884277487 braghavan[at]gmail[dot]com
Kakkan Colony 8 Aug 4-30 to 6-30 pm Besant Avenue, near Fruit shop Basu 9940064384 shankarnarayananbasu[at]gmail[dot]com
Pudiyador 9 Aug 11-00 to 1-00 pm Vannathurai Anupama 9003269018 anupama.s3[at]gmail[dot]com

Deepam All Hand’s Meet (AHM)

Dear Team,
We will have our first AHM next Sunday. Here are the details :

Date : August 9th, Sunday
Time : 4 – 6 pm.
Venue : P S High School, Mylapore, RK Mutt Road, Opposite to Ramkrishna Mission
Agenda: All Deepam volunteers ganging up to meet and discuss about future plans.

Who can Come

This is general body meeting for all Deepam- Bridge The Divide Volunteers. If you are getting mails from from the google group : [email protected], or receiving this through a mail, or hearing this from a friend you can simply walk in.

Any problem/doubt ? : Ring me at 99400 64384 or mail at [email protected]

Forget all formalities, if you want to give-back to the society, Just Be There!!!

Thanks,
Basu.
Deepam-Lead.

PS : Thanks Gopal for arranging this venue for all of us.

Deepam Sessions Aug 1-2 weekend

Centre Day Timings Center Location Centre Lead Contact
Olcott School 1 Aug 9-30am to 1-00 pm Near Besant Nagar Beach Dr.Karthick 9444440713 drkarthick[at]ledentiste[dot]in
Uroor Kuppam 1 Aug 2-30 to 4-30 pm Near Besant Nagar Beach Balaji 9884277487 braghavan[at]gmail[dot]com
Kakkan Colony 1 Aug 4-30 to 6-30 pm Besant Avenue, near Fruit shop Basu 9940064384 shankarnarayananbasu[at]gmail[dot]com
Pudiyador 2 Aug 11-00 to 1-00 pm Vannathurai Anupama 9003269018 anupama.s3[at]gmail[dot]com

apologies for the late post

Deepam Sessions July 25-26 weekend

Centre Day Timings Center Location Centre Lead Contact
UK 25 July 2-30 to 4-30 pm Near Besant Nagar Beach Balaji 9884277487 braghavan[at]gmail[dot]com
KC 25 July 4-30 to 6-30 pm Besant Avenue, near Fruit shop Basu 9940064384 shankarnarayananbasu[at]gmail[dot]com
Pudiyador 26 July 11-00 to 1-00 pm Vannathurai Anupama 9003269018 anupama.s3[at]gmail[dot]com

July 18th @ KC

Michael Jackson still enthrals the world. The kids were quite enthusiastic on MJ.They came out with facts which I am sure many of us did not know (well how many of you know about Jackson 5 ??? I did’nt 🙂 )…

I significant highlight of the week was visit by Dr.Saswati Mukherjee, Professor,Dept. of Computer Science, College Of Engineering, Guindy, Anna University.
Kids kept astounding her with their knowledge on booting, BIOS settings.

Secondly, the kids are participating instead of being .They themselves are volunteering to answer questions,read paragraph.Guess we ahve been succesful in breaking open initial reclusive/shy nature.And this “attitude” was not just among the boys, girls were not far behind in competing.Thirdly,Revathy, a kid from std 6, approached us and asked the print out of the story read last week.This clearly proves, we are able to create a little amount of “interest” in the kids’ mind.

Cheers!!!
Basu…

Deepam Sessions July 18-19th weekend

Centre Day Timings Center Location Centre Lead Contact
Olcott School 18 July 9-30am to 1-00 pm Near Besant Nagar Beach Dr.Karthick 9444440713 drkarthick[at]ledentiste[dot]in
UK 18 July 2-30 to 4-30 pm Near Besant Nagar Beach Balaji 9884277487 braghavan[at]gmail[dot]com
KC 18 July 4-30 to 6-30 pm Besant Avenue, near Fruit shop Basu 9940064384 shankarnarayananbasu[at]gmail[dot]com
Pudiyador 19 July 11-00 to 1-00 pm Vannathurai Anupama 9003269018 anupama.s3[at]gmail[dot]com