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Blog, Childrens Day 2009

Childrens Day 2009 at Deepam UK Centre


We were hoping the rains would go away for that special day, but no, it was pouring ! An hour before the event, we inspected the premises and noticed some water trickling in. But thankfully, once the celebration got underway at 2.30pm, nothing seemed to matter. The regular set of children turned up, and after several smiley exchanges of Happy Childrens’ day, the white Deepam T-shirts were distributed to the them (S-M-L). Out came the fabric colours, and then, ever-energetic Archana gave clear instructions to the children on how to use each type of colour, wax crayons, blocks, rollers and tubes. Newspapers were spread all over the ground, and Radhika took charge at the centre of the circle formed by the group. They couldn’t wait to begin. Over the next hour, as we strolled around, we saw different pictures emerging on each T-shirt….brand Nike, Michael Jackson, Chevrolet Cruze and what not ! Many of them highlighted the round collar too. It was a riot of colours ! The masterpieces were then collected and using hangers, were hung out to dry on a makeshift clothesline. Wow ! It was brilliant to see them all together!

It was then time to Launch the Library project, a new initiative at Deepam. Ram engaged the children in a discussion about the significance of a library and reading, and soon the set of books were given out to the children, mostly based on the child’s interest. We hope to get the children hooked to the reading habit, and judging from the initial response, it may be easier than we think.

The serious bit over, all eyes were now on the chocolate truffle cake placed enticingly on the table. The cake cutting made the event like one big birthday party. The plates with cake and biscuits were passed around to all the children, the caretakers, and volunteers. ….All this while, something was happening behind the scene. The surprise of the day was the deepam Tiger ! The children were amused and happy to see a growling tiger suddenly emerge from the back, and enjoyed taking pictures… Srini’s efforts paid off and the Tiger was a super hit ! All happy faces, more exchanges of Happy Children’s day and it was time to go.

– Anuradha

Blog, Spark, urrur Kuppum

Lighting the Spark

This incident happened in the UK centre a few weeks back. And I am certain that I will quote this whenever I get a chance. The computer session was in progress. The topic being covered was MS PowerPoint. Kids were in small groups trying to make a simple 2-slide presentation on any topic of thier choice. For visuals, we had asked them to select a suitable clipart picture and insert it in the slide.

One boy stood out from the rest of the class in this activity. Manivannan, the little boy with an ever bright face, was at first puzzled that his laptop did not have any clipart pictures. After a few minutes of futile searching, there was suddenly a gleam on his face. He had cracked it ! He used the webcam in the laptop, posed smilingly in front of it, clicked himself and saved his photograph on the destop. He then inserted this into his powerpoint slide and titled the presentation ‘About Me” – Manivannan, and went on to add a few bullet points about himself.

That was a moment of happy re-assurance that Deepam’s efforts in ‘lighting the spark’ were indeed paying off. Balaji, who was Manivannan’s mentor on that day couldn’t stop smiling for a long time after this happened.

His day was made !

– Anuradha

Blog, urrur Kuppum

Drawing @ Deepam

What a surprise it was to see the Urur Kuppam kids armed with colour pencils for the saturday class – 10th Oct. We had mentioned to them the previous week about a competition announced by Young World, and what participation ! Kishore ran home to fetch A4 sheets for all. And new volunteer Giri chipped in with crayons , that he dashed home to get ! What spirit ! From then on it was several artists at work, each poring over his or her paper, so diligently, and with so much attention to detail. Will attempt to publish the scanned drawings – each more endearing than the other, so you can see the effort and enthusiasm that went into that one hour ! Balaji, Nisha, Giri and I had a great time going around encouraging them, and praising all the effort. (Srini, had to rush to organise the next event)

Interacting with kids is always rewarding. The take-away for us volunteers this time was “diligence” – in even a simple activity like Drawing.


– Anuradha

Blog, Take Home a PC

Most Memorable Independence Day of My Life

I spent my best Independence Day ever and so did KK, Ram, Archana, and Dr.Karthick. I opened my eyes on 15th August morning to a light drizzle and a cool climate whihc cheered me up instatntly. The lovely weather was a precursor to the day that would follow.

Deepam launched the “Take Home a PC” initiative at the Olcott Memorial High School. A week back Muthuselvi would not dream of an ordinary desktop and now, she got her hands onto an Apple Mac PC.

After the I-Day ceremony concluded at OMHS, Muthuselvi was informed and she was dumb-found and left without any words to express herself. All the teachers at Olcott, headed by the HM Mary Miss and the Director Lakshmi Maam, witnessed and expressed their hopes on Muthuselvi.
After that it was only installling the pc at her place and thats all… it made the best I-Day of my life…

One very important thing to note is Muthuselvi is quite familiar with Windows but we knew she was alien to Mac.This has provided her with one more challenge which we are very sure she can tackle. She is strong on her fundamentals and quite inquisitive by nature. It will be very interesting for a girl of her talent to venture forth and discover new things. After all life is an exploration itself!!!

– Basu

Blog, stars

Take Home a PC – First step in a thousand mile journey starts this Saturday

Dear Friends

I am glad to announce the launch of an important an program, “Take home a PC‘ , which we hope will be a precursor to the ambitious “one laptop per child” program. This is an important milestone in our journey and glad we are able to do it this year..

All of know the importance of computers and its power to transform lives. Many of us have directly benefited from our exposure to information technology and for some of us (like me) it is our livelihood. We are not just talking about computer technology, but leveraging computers as enablers to better the lives of less privileged kids amongst us.

India as a country cannot progress if significant population of our society does not have access to tools that enable them compete in the global economic playing field. With the equal access to educational tools like computers, kids from less privileged background can perform and shine at par with the other kids. That’s why we are very excited about the small beginning we are making with Take Home a PC.

our objective is quite simple with Take Home a PC.. Deepam would like to give a PC and possibly access to Internet to every child who successfully complete one year program. This we believe will open the whole new world of possibilities to the kids and their families.

Take Home a PC makes a small beginning this Saturday @ Olcott Memorial High School. We will be giving a PC to an exceptional student who went through our program last year. She is intelligent, bright and more importantly has passion for learning. We are truly delighted to see Muthu being the first recipient of a PC under this program.

We would really appreciate if you can be present @ Olcott for this brief ceremony which will happen along with the Independence day flag hoisting ceremony. Details as under..

Where: Olcott Memorial High School
When: Flag hoisting ceremony starts @ 8:30AM and our program would be around 9:00ish.
Date: Aug 15, 2009

Blog, Volunteer of the Month

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 🙂

Blog, KC, pudiyador, UK

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