Children's home visit - Chennai

Dear All,

It gives me immense pleasure to share about our DI Valasaravakkam project - 2. As part of our second project we planned to visit 'Ramamoorthy educational & rehabiliation trust ', a home for parentless children on sep.20 (sunday).

We DI vols reached the home by 9.15 a.m. and had a brief introduction with the kids & trustee. We also had a special guest Miss.Shobana, HR of L & T with us.

Then we started with prayer.Our first event was 'Word Anthakshiri'. We had this event to enrich their vocabularly and develop spontanity.That seems to be very interesting. We gave chocolates to the winner and runner.

Our next event is 'Passing the ball'. Something like 'Musical chair'. We'l play a music and kids need to pass the ball from their hand to others without dropping it. It was very interesting towards the end.

Third event was 'mini snow bowling'. We piled up the cups and asked the kids to come in turn and throw the ball towards the cup. One who made least number of cups intact will qualify for next level (i.e., We'l extend the distance of meters). Again one who made least number of cups intact declared as the winner. To our surprise we had a many close calls. So, we equally gave them the chocolates as prizes.

Next we played 'Dumbsharabs'. We splitted 20 kids into 2 teams and we vols joined in their team and played along with them. Category was film names. Many came up with tough names that we couldn't guess it.

Then we had lunch from 12.30 p.m. - 1.30 p.m.

Post lunch we started with the 'screening of Tom & Jerry' cartoon. This is the most interesting of all. Kids were enjoying to their core & laughing out loud, by there alomost we came to know about our success. We provided with the snacks like biscuits, juice, chips (One of our vol[Ashik] bought it from Kerala) to them while watching the toon at 3.30 p.m.

I prepared a feedback form and asked them to fill it up and give me. I asked the kids to 'feel free in writing'. I'l go thourgh it, scan and send you soon.

In the end we had some culturals like asking the kids those who are interested in singing, dancing, doing mimicry, poem reciting. They voluntarily came up the performances which were too good. Finally, we asked few kids to come up and speak about the day's events and how they felt. All were happy in attending our sessions.

I hereby take this opportunity to thank HR of L & T Miss.Shobana for coming and spending her day with kids and DI team.

Thanks & Regards,

Aravindhan

Children

KK - September 09' visit

Dear Friends,

Last Sunday, September 6th, our team visited Kaakum Karangal old age home and provided dinner to the residents as a part of our monthly visit.

They were all very happy to see us after almost 3 to 4 weeks. One of the paati's (grandmas) sang a prayer song and this was followed by usual prayer. They have been asking for some cash to be given for the monthly expense like getting extra tablets, drinking coffee etc. We have started giving 20rs each [ 36 residents ] for this purpose.

Next visit is on October 11th, Sunday.

Regards,

Natarajan

Dream India

Madhumitha - Cornea Surgery

Dear Friends,

Sometime back, we got hearing aid for a kid called Madhumitha from Pondicherry. This family was known to us through my brother. Father lost his job because of recession in export clothing units. He is now doing electrician work as and when he gets. Ms.Hemalatha, mother of Madhu had to undergo cornea replacement surgery. The total cost was around 8000rs and they approached us for assistance.

Upon verifying the case, it was decided that we can partially support by paying Rs.5000. I am also discussing with my brother about finding some employment opportunity for Madhu's father and empowering her mom through some vocational training.

Regards,

Natarajan

Baby Sanmitha - Medical request

Dear Friends,

We got a medical request from our Bangalore team for Baby Sanmitha's operation. This kid was adopted by Mr.Mahesh and recently they discovered that the kid is suffering from hearing disability. The operation costs around 12 lacs. From DI side, if you remember, we had collected funds for Pune kid Babli's operation recently. We had some amount from that collection and contributed 25k for this project.

Regards

Natarajan

Dream India

Shishu Mandir - An India Sudar report

Dear Friends

Visited Sishumandir on Sunday along with Udhay. We wanted to meet up with the new teacher who will be take over as previous teacher left us. Previous teacher Mrs.Yashoda served us really well. She left because of health reasons. We wish her a speedy recovery.

Currently there are 22 students. the average varies between 40 to 20.

Current year has seen some good adoption from public(More than 100 kids adopted !)

The new teacher also seems to be enthusiatic candidate.

Details of Teacher :

Name : Ms. Mala

Age : 20

Qualification : PUC

Due to unfortunate cisrcumstances, had to leave her husband and come to banglore city. Orginally from rural bangalore. Currently she is with Govt Wome's home in the same campus as Sishu mandir. She has 2 year old kid also.

The home officer Ms.halima interviwed her earlier and shortlisted.

We find he ok to proceed with our current project.

Since she is also in the same campus it will be useful and also we see this as oppurtunity to give a push to her life also. Both ways a win -win for us.

Sishu Mandir project in Bangalore was one of the first projects we started partnership with Dream India team & has been successfully completed 3 years.We will continue our association for the 4th consecutive year also for this project.

Once again our sincere thanks to Dream India for partnering with us on our journey ! Its been a pleseant experience as always

Will update all once we prepare the project report !

Regards

shiva

New DI chapter - Coimbatore

Dear Friends,

Our friend Shyam is now doing his MBA at PSG and has started our Coimbatore chapter. As you all know, Shyam has been a pillar of support for DI Chennai at Adyar school and was mainly responsible for the Pollachi educational festival we conducted last year.

It is no wonder that a guy of his energy level has taken the next step to start our new chapter. Along with our YHM friends and his college friends in Coimbatore, we have taken the first step of activating DI chapter at this city.

We need volunteers, especially girl volunteers for the project mentioned below.

Place :Coimbatore

Location : Gandhi ma nagar (Next to peelamedu Level crossing)

Genre :Ment for only girls from 1 std to 12th std

Requirement:Part time volunteers Especially Girls (Like as explained before) little fluent in tamil*

Classes on:Only sundays between 2pm to 5 pm

Please spread the word and help us find more volunteers.

On behalf of all our chapters across India, I wish Shyam and our DI Coimbatore friends all the very best.

Anbudan,

Natarajan

Dream India

Adyar Typing course

Dear Friends,

We have got a very good development at our classes for 9th standard students. As you all are aware, Navaneethan is already enrolled for lower level typing exam for the past 3 months. A few others promised to join on their own, but I found that they did not. When I checked, I found most of them did not get enough support from their family.

Last Saturday, I could luckily visit their families. I told them all about enrolling the kids and they readily agreed. As an incentive, we are paying their first month fee and have clearly told the students that they should come to us only if their family situation really turns bad and cannot pay for them. All their parents are daily wagers and they in housing board colony near my area.

Today, the kids came to give the receipts to me and know what - Looks like when the news about their enrollment spread, many more students [ not part of our DI classes ] enrolled and are continuing the course. It is like "goodness spreads goodness". I can vouch that our students are becoming examples for others, the ideal situation we are all working towards.

Also, even the students who are not good in subjects seems to be doing very well on the typing course. It is our duty to ensure the inner talent of the kids are found and addressed so that they become better citizens tomorrow.

Plan is to have our 17 kids from 9th should clear the lower level exam by Feb 10. I would be talking to remaining kids this week. The project costs Rs.1120 for 7 students, but the benefit cannot be expressed in terms of any value. Attached the project documents for your reference.

Regards,

Natarajan

Dream India

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