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
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.
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)
A picture is worth a thousand words. A collage too! As the children at Adyar-Pudiyador created art from junk material!
In preparation…
Work in progress…
The volunteers and children engrossed…
Art from junk!
Thanks Bharani for judging this piece as a winner!
Check out more pictures of the event at Pudiyador and other centers on our Deepam Facebook page (login not required)
Hello Friends,
End / Start of a year is a great time to lookback on the work and assess / plan .
2009 was our 1st full year at Deepam. Its also the year where a number of people have stepped forward to contribute / give back. Being entirely volunteer driven, this is a significant step at Deepam. Volunteers are also ‘connecting’ with the kids, which is a big step towards making a positive impact on the children. On the organisation front, we are beginning to be recoganised by external organisations – we are able to now partner with others, lot more easily. We are also getting our act together on fundraising , which is much required activity for our infrastructure needs.
We added 4 new centres and 140+ students in our programs in 2009 alone. That number, ofcourse, doesn’t matter as much as how much ‘impact’ we made. We are improving this, as we go.
As we end the year 2009, I want to thank all the volunteers for the dedication and sincere effort. Without you, Deepam wouldn’t be able to ‘bridge the divide’.
In 2010, our focus will be mainly on improving the impact we make, on the students. We will be working on a curriculum relevant for deepam ( tailored for each centre ), that excites and interests the students. Infrastructure availability ( internet and a good student : computer ratio ) will be a priority as well. Finally, volunteer support at each centre, to ensure our children have the mentorship they need.
2010 will be an exciting year at Deepam – Lets make more impact on the children.
Wish all of you at Deepam, a happy holidays and a fantastic new year.
The New Deepam center @ Venkata Ramana School, Alwarpet got off to a great start with a vibrant inaugural session this morning at 10.30 AM. The Principal was waiting eagerly for us along with Mr.Janardhan from Rotary who connected Deepam with VRS. And when Abhinav walked in with camera in hand, it was time to begin.
Twenty select children from 5th grade were made to assemble in a small, tidy classroom. Basu gave a cute intro about Deepam to the wide-eyed kids in his bengali tamil. We shared the short term Objectives to be met by Deepam, and the Principal emphasized to the students the unique opportunity that they were getting. Over the next half hour each volunteer guided students with filling the Know Your Students Form.
It was Thilaka Ravi who took over at this point, with a very effective session on spoken English covering basic action verbs. The loud and energetic response of the VRS children charged the classroom, and even we volunteers who were watching got pulled into the exercise of structuring simple action sentences ! Her teaching skills left us feeling that the right person was in charge here ! Meantime new volunteer Pradyut supported by another new volunteer Abhishek, brought the 4 OLPCs that were being charged in another classroom. I must mention here that Pradyut had come over the previous evening after a long day at IIT, and after tinkering around with an OLPC took it home to get a proper feel of it. Such involvement is indeed very reassuring.
The class was divided into 4 groups and the session on Paint that followed proved that children’s curiosity about computers is a universal thing. Each child got a chance to draw shapes, and fill colour. Earlier we were wondering if they might need a mouse for easier navigation, but the children surprised us with their quickness in learning to point, click and drag the cursor with the touch pad.
Two hours just flew past, and when we were leaving, almost every child came forward to shake our hands with a smiling Thank You or Happy New Year. A great start it was this morning ! Another chance indeed for Deepam to empower deserving children !
Friends – We have some good news – Our Friends at Cognizant (CTS ) / Team Everest have donated 10 new OLPC’s to Deepam. These laptops will be used at the new centre that Deepam’s starting this weekend at Alwarpet,Chennai. The class 4/5 students at this school will benefit from these machines.
Anuradha ( quick thinking, as always), has some wonderful ideas to put the OLPCs to use, at the centre. We will hear more from her, in the coming days .
A big thanks to Kartheeban Chandramohan, founder of Team Everest for supporting Deepam. Also, thanks to Srini for liaising with Team Everest and making this happen.
