KK visit - July and Chennai updates

Dear Friends,

Last week our team visited KK old age home and provided dinner to all the residents. After more than a year and half, we had Janakiraman join us back for DI's on field activities. We also had couple of new friends join us.

The residents were very happy to see us and in fact they has already asked the in charge to find the date we would visit them. They all feel and see us as a part of their family. We have planned to conduct some kind of games, cultural programs for our next visit.

Photos given below:

Adyar Class:

Parthy met our Adyar school HM last week and has collected the names of the students for this year spoken English/PD classes. We also would continue our classes for the 9th standard students.

Classes at Adyar would begin from Saturday, 4th July 2009. Will keep you posted.

Valasarawakkam

The DI classes at Valasarawakkam for this academic year had been started on 13th june. We the Alapakkam School head master for 25 students of Class 6 for the classes. But to our suprise we got nearly 80 Students. Arunan, Aravidhan and myself (Sriram) managed to conduct the classes in disciplined way. For the first two weeks we planned to have some educational games. then probably we can start teaching some spoken English.

Regards,,

Natarajan & Sriram

Apale Ghar girl clears her Tenth Exam

Adding DI oune group and trustees to thread J

This month seems to be a gr8 gr8 month for DI …After Bablis roller coaster here comes the most awaited news of the year….

POOJA PASS HO GAYIII…cant believe it man !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

She has cleared all her board exam papers given below is result

SSC EXAMINATION RESULTS 2009

Division	Pune
Seat Number	C009215
Name	CHAVAN PUJA PRADIP

Subject Name (Subject Code)	Marks
MARATHI (01)	053
HINDI (15)	047
ENGLISH (17)	038
MATHS	053
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY	057
SOCIAL SCIENCES	057
Total Marks	305
Percentage	46.92
Congratulations!!! You are passed

Dosto we at DI have this habit of beating the bench marks and delivering the unbelievable..and we proved it again J

I still remember 6 months back when we use to discuss about Pooja most of us had our own genuine doubts, and concerns about her passing 10th board exams.

we approached many teachers, spoke to lot of veterans and after looking at Pooja’s status almost all of them were of the opinion that chances are really BLEAK.

things really looked very very tough at that time...samaz nahi raha tha ki after Supriya if Pooja fails in 10^th it might be very demotivating not only for other kids in Aplaghar but for DI volunteers as well.

DI Volunteers decided to work on this at war level. Ashwini, Sameer despande , Amit Gawade, Deepak Shingan, Deepak P , Rachana , Anushree, Udhaav More, Surendra, Preetam ..…. Discussed , planned for hours … approached lot of people what to do what not to do … help strted coming from all sides and …we all know the outcome now.

This was a team effort and every one contributed to thr best …but still Three names and there exemplary commitment needs special mention here, despite of there personal problems, official commitments , personal commitments these guys spent day and night planning, thinking and praying about Pooja:

ASHWINI J--- DI ki Aunty

Ashwini was always confident that Pooja will pass…she worked with her like anything ..took Pooja to her place for weekends … spent entire day teaching her….. went all the way to Aapla ghar after office hours(15 kms) in week days just to teach her …on weekends it was more than 5-6 hours some times. She was engaged to get married during this time …but still Pooja was always the priority… ANIL ji gussa mat hona ;) J

What a commitment !!!! ….rare isn’t it J

We all are really proud of you ASHWINI and your efforts are really commendable...HATS OFF!!!

Sameer Deshpande --- Mein hu na J

This down to earth gentle man was always a inspiration for us … way he planned things for Pooja were just perfect…he use go all the way to collect for giving her sample papers to solve and then spending hours to check them and then giving right feedback to her …. Congratulations sir ji J

Amit Gawade – Tension nahi lene ka

Amit sir also worked very hard with Pooja especially for English, without him I doubt she would have cleared English papers, we all knew he was going through very tough times but his commitment is worth mentioning here.he use to go alone whenever he had time sit with her for hours …hum ko to pata bhi nahi chalta tha kitni baar ki Amit AG jake aa gaya

Salute sir !

Last but not least Pooja J

w/o her co-operation an dedication it was almost impossible DI volunteers kabhi bhi tapak padte the...but she always used to welcome them an ready to sit for studies...never got annoyed of so many suggestions, assignments ...it was like single student an so many teachers jus to try anything they think of.

Hurraahhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Together we can Together we should !!!!

And yes as Deepak said Parttyyyyyy !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Regards,

Ashish

Dream India - Pune

Updates from Mumbai centers

Hi All,

Lalita, our own student from Aarey colony Gaun Devi pada has passed her standard twelfth examinations with flying colors. Considering she hails from a place where women are not encouraged to study, this is a great achievement for her and she can rightly be now called the ambassador of women in that community.

In order to appreciate her efforts, our Mumbai team will be felicitating her this weekend in the Pada itself along with the support of the local community. Please try to attend the function.

There is still a lot that needs to be done in this area. The practice of marriage of girls at a very very young age is still rampant and it is very important that we try to sensitise the community about the evils of the same. Padmaja is following up with an women-welfare NGO and if possible, we will invite someone from there to give a small talk on the topic this weekend.

A small look around the different centers in Bombay would give an idea of how women are treated in our country. The sister of one of our students in another center in Bombay was married off early and lives with her in-laws in a far away place in India. She recently conceived but she was beaten up so badly by her in-laws that the child died in birth. Her parents have now rushed to her aid, but considering that it is almost sure that no legal case will be filed, chances of justice here are slim. We can only take heart from the fact that the remaining two girls in the family are well under our (Dream India's) fold and are studying very well. We have thrust upon the family that under no circumstance should they marry off these daughters early and that they should study as far as they want to.

Once again, request you all to treat this email as an eye-opener. There are these girls that fall in the latter category (beaten up and living a pitiful life) and those that are seeking to be liberated (studying hard, doing computer courses, passing twelfth in flying colors and aiming for higher). We should strive to create more of the former, and that requires hard and tireless work. We have done well so far, let us try to do better.

PS: One last update...Based on my recent conversation with Gawarikar Sir (In which I came to know the above updates), we agreed to try and make a visit to Raigad in Maharashtra, to study the Hole in the Wall project. Maybe even some kids can be taken along for the visit (but very few, considering the distance of the trip).

Best Regards,

Varun R

Dream India

Updates from Chennai centers

Hi team,

I'm Aravindhan. I was teaching for the students of anna nagar so far. Since, one of the volunteer from Valasaravakkam had been to Mumbai for his training, I would like to continue my teaching in Valasaravakkam. So, the team members of Valasaravakkam includes Sriram, Arunan and Aravindhan. The DI classes for this academic year is scheduled to commence from today onwards (13.06.2009).

Timings :

4.00 p.m. - 5.00 p.m - On saturdays

10.00 a.m. - 11.00 a.m. - On sundays

Venue :

Govt. High School, alapakkam.

We'll update you the daily activities that is taking place during the classes.

regards,

Aravindhan

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Dear Team,

Join me in welcoming Saravanan (a student), Ravi & Farooq (both from IBM) into our Chennai team. They have been visiting us for a past few weeks. I should extend my special thanks to Farooq and Ravi - inspite of being non-residents of Chennai and not knowing how the language Tamil works, have been taking the city bus to reach our classes every weekend... well, sometimes have missed the destination too !! :-) that goes to show the commitment they have..

Classes in Anna Nagar have been going on well. With more specialists joining our team, we have many plans to materialise.

Regards,

Vishnu.

Chennai - Anna Nagar classes

Chennai DI updates - May 2009

Dear Friends,

KK Visit

Couple of weeks ago, we visited KK Children and old age home and provided dinner for the residents. We had a lot of new volunteers join us for the visit. The children enjoyed a lot by singing songs and playing with volunteers.

Trip to 'Rain Forest'

May 17th was the last day for the Adyar computer classes. We gave the children [ 12 children ] a surprise moment by taking them for lunch to Rain Forest, a theme based Restaurant in Adyar. It was a very nice moment for each of the kid and they enjoyed it thoroughly. Attached a few snaps from the visit. Please note that this particular lunch was NOT done as a project by Dream India. Volunteers shared the complete cost.

Regards,

Natarajan
Dream India

Anti Tobacco Campaign

Hi All

This was planned to be an event by the kids to highlight the evils of Tobacco to the public. We were quite sceptical before this event as neither kids nor we faced public,while rehearsals too kids used to laugh and were never appearing serious.But I made up mind in case everything fails I myself will explain the posters we collected from an other NGO. But while actually performing in front of people everybody was serious and looked like professionals. I was very upset with Sita, Deepak's sister,as she was always laughing while practicing.She however cooly told me once we face audience we will be serious and will not take it lightly,and she proved to be right.

Shashi,my sister-sunanda, Chandrashekhar-Padmaja's brother, Chintan, Sujoy,his mother,Sharvary,her mother,brother,Venkat krishna,Manasi,etc were present. Padmaja was not well but she prompty sent me letters,caps-with DI logo printed on them.

Kids were in full spirits on the 31st of May in the Borivali National Park. Sharvari has taken real pains to go to centre regularly and make them practice their roles. Though original script was mine she modified to suit kids. I took sessions explaining what addiction means. Krishna,Mansi and other volunteers too took part in improvising. On 31, Shashi took full charge of kids he also enjoyed distrbuting posters to and collecting audience.Sujoy's mother distrbuted caps to kids and volunteers.Chintan and Venkat Krishna took out special time and visited and encouraged kids in their task.It was lovely experience,Kids and my sister explained posters to old and young adivasis with equal enthusiasm.

We also collected remarks/opinion from people about our show that was consting of two parts-skit and poster explanation. Breakfast and working lunch was provided to all those present.

Overall, was a great event and hope people turn over a new leaf and quit tobacco.

Thanks

S.K.Gawarikar

Dream India