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Deepam Outstanding Volunteers – 2014
Deepam’s Outstanding Volunteer Award is given to volunteers whose performance in the year has made a difference, made people take notice and follow their examples.
Deepam takes immense pleasure and enormous pride in acknowledging and sharing with everyone, such splendid performance by such volunteers by honoring them with this Award.
Here are the 2 awardees this year
Praveen Venkatachari :
Praveen is a fantastic example of someone who is highly passionate about education & teaching.
As a volunteer, he laid the foundations of a good computer program at Deepam . He identified books for teaching computer basics, which was used by all Deepam children this year. He made ‘Computer class’ at WM centre a reality by dedicating 30 minutes exclusively for teaching computers to 5th standard children. He constantly thinks of ways to reach English and Computers to children and is a major contributor to curriculum on Deepam Dropbox with valuable information / files. He made a ton of other contributions, in devising a common Assessment Test sheet for all Centers, built the new website for Deepam, Built a better volunteer on-boarding forms and many more.
As a leader, he listens to his team and is open to suggestions. He strives to make it easy for volunteers to execute ideas. Has a great sense of responsibility, adapts to changing situations, and willingly takes on any role as situation demands. He has also maintained a good rapport with WM school Principal to ensure weekly Deepam classes go on smoothly.
As an individual, he is someone high in integrity. He is always on time and in a totally volunteer setting, has a 100% attendance at Deepam classes in West Mambalam.
Rohit Narasimhan :
Ever since he’s been introduced to Deepam, Rohit has been an extremely committed volunteer at VRS centre. True to his nature, Rohit usually avoids the limelight, but is easily amongst the most reliable volunteers. He is a regular at VRS Centre, actively teaching children for the past 2 years.
For all kinds of events / outings / activities etc, Rohit’s leading participation can be taken for granted. He is invariably unfazed about any responsibility he is given or the tasks he takes up. His involvement with the kids and volunteers is extremely cordial.
In addition to his regular contribution as a teaching volunteer at VRS centre, Rohit has gone out of the way to ensure the STARS program at VRS centre gets a yearly funding. He also took a big initiative in helping Deepam pitch and win the funding from World Bank in 2013.
From the most routine tasks such as putting the laptops for charge every week to pitching for complex funding projects, Rohit’s dedication has been outstanding. An award well deserved and we look forward to him doing many more interesting work!
TCS dress donation @ Deepam
TCS, Chennai made a noble initiative to donate dresses to all our kids on the account of this year’s Deepavali. The event was held a week after Deepavali on 9th Nov. Deepam wishes to thank TCS on this wonderful gesture that was recieved very well by our kids and volunteers. Some pictures from the event are attached
Excursion to Planetarium- VRS Center
With incessant rains through night, it looked like we wouldn’t have enough kids to take for the excursion today. And so 3 of us went to the school to make sure the few who turned up, went back home safely. Much to our surprise, we had a full strength of 20 kids and after a lot of discussion, deliberation and confusion, we decided to stick to the plan and take the kids along in 2 cars and an auto. And as expected, it turned out to be a memorable visit to the Planetarium.
Children were super excited to see live models at Transport, Ocean, Electronic & Communication and Mirror galleries. Children were then provided some refreshments which was followed by the astonishing 30 min cosmic show which was an absolute visual treat. The children were then taken to a 3D show with entertaining kids films.
While the weather stayed spectacular from thereon, we returned back to the school after a magnificent outing. The photos will speak the rest of the story.
“Featured Volunteer of the Month” for Oct’13
Our endeavor to reward enthusiastic volunteers every month continues to be a testimony of Deepam’s recognition for our volunteer fraternity.
In this order, Srividya of VRS center is our “Featured Volunteer of the Month” for Oct’13. A short write-up on her by the center head Abhishek Mundra is given below…
“Srividya is an extremely committed volunteer and has been an active volunteer with VRS for almost 2 years now. She participates pro-actively in all our efforts and makes valuable contribution when required. She was deeply involved in the ‘Curriculum Planning’ exercise and her spirited participation and involvement were a motivation to the Deepam Curriculum Team.
Srividya commutes an hour every Saturday, but that is no deterrent She currently teaches the kids of the Advanced Batch at VRS and is very effective in her interactions with the kids. Kudos to her for a very deserving ‘Volunteer of the Month’ award.”