Volunteer feedback on DI....

Hi friends....

It has been a great journey with all possible and different kinds of emotions (many never enjoyed before) with Dream India. For more than a year and half, the attachment with DI has made a huge difference within me.

I still remember the day when my brother Bharath Ram and I went the residence of the HM of Alapakkam govt. School. We went with all doubts abt what will be his response for us to take classes during weekends. The previous year the classes were handled by Varun and Aparna. Its bcos of their great efforts, he agreed to our request to continue taking classes. I still hear the words uttered by him. He told "Service to poor Students is Service to GOD himself". Great man he is...

We were much excited to get nearly 30 students for the classes, with the help of the HM. Then gradually the numbers decreased, may be bcos our classes were similar to the one they had in school. Since it was the first experience for my brother and me. we concentrated much on academics. probably that was our fault. Then, my uncle donated his computer to the school, with which we started taking Computer classes. There were many weeks when only students less than 5 attended. But then we regularly went, at least in turns. We were a bit sad abt the no.of students, but the enthusiasm of ppl who came to the classes(Raja Raja cholan, Prakash & Manikandan) was big boost to us.

Towards the middle of last year, we had a great strengthening, as we were joined by Arunan. Then we three continued to come till the end. We were greatly impressed with the interest showed by the students. For all the efforts by three of us, we were able to make those students a little confident in their english and comfortable in handling computers.

In june, we had a review meeting with Nata, Varun and Aparna. We then learnt from our mistakes and planned to have more of activity based learning. And instead of concentrating on 8th std. students we planned to take 6th. Bharath got placed in BPCL and went to Mumbai. And Since I would be leaving soon, I was looking for someone to join Arunan to handle classes. Then Aravindhan joined us.

The greatest advantage for this year was that we actually gained more confidence form the HM. With that Aravindhan, Arunan and I again asked for some 30 std.6th students. To our surprise on the first day we got around 80 students. It was really great. Soon by God's grace we were joined by Aarthi, Ivor and Ashik and finally by Gajendran to guide students. This year, the reponse from the students and the school is great. We all conducted Drawing competition, Guest lecture from Dr.Ramani Sukumar and the MEGA event. All these I consider as a result of constant working of all of us. We need to get things going and do as many things as possible for the students who show such an unconditional love and affection for us.

29th Aug 2009 would be the most unforgettable day for me. It was really the most happiest day for me. I really missed Bharath on that day. He should have been there to see how his efforts resulted in such sweet fruits.

I would be taking with me all the sweet memories of this year and half assosication with DI, school and MY students. I pray the Almighty that I should finish my studies ASAP, come back and then should have similar opportunity to continue my second chapter with DI. I thank Nata and others, who have really guided us on the right path, so that we could do something useful to students.

Yours lovingly,

S.Sriram