Minutes of Meeting - DI Mumbai, 16th April, 2009

Hi All,

The following is a detailed report on the meeting that we had in Bombay on the 16th of April, at Mr Gawarikar's home between 8 am and 11 am. The meeting was attended by the following members:

Padmaja

Jamuna

Sharvari

Mr Gawarikar

Rupesh

Myself

We started by talking about retaining volunteers and the various way of doing this. This has been a topic for discussion for many many years now in various centers of DI and will continue to be so, as we are an organisation that do not employ people, but rather induct people who come forward to volunteer on their own accord. We figured out that talking to the vols and making them feel part of the DI family and more importantly, involving them in the community building process right from the beginning, will give them more sense of responsibility and that might keep them going for a long time. Rupesh also stressed the importance of creating leaders out of volunteers, and though this is not an easy task to achieve, we should strive towards this in order to build a better DI family. We would also be making the new vols attend one or two of our classes so that they get a feel of how we go about our tasks.

All volunteers will soon be receiving copies of official DI posters that are now available and it will be great to have them put up on various places in the city like Shopping malls, coffee shops and similar youth hang outs, our own office complexes etc. This might get us some more volunteers.

Padmaja has agreed to call up prospective karmayog vols regularly and try to induct them into the team. From time to time vols from other centers would also help her in this activity.

Since the email communication from the Mumbai has been falling short of desired standards over the last one year, this topic was discussed extensively. Jamuna has taken this up on herself and she will ensure at least bi-weekly communication of events happening in all DI-Mumbai centers. Either she will coax the center vols to themselves mail to the team about the various activities happening, or she will collect the info and herself mail about it. Request the entire team to co-operate and please follow this communication on priority. The Chennai team also discussed the same yesterday (Nata will send MoM for that in a day or two), so the importance of this can never be ignored.

Regarding the individual center news...

Borivali

The team has been performing admirably over the years and that can be seen in the progress of the students out here. Now that summer is here, we have decided to do the following activities in the next two months...

• Enroll 5 children for a MS-CIT (3-month) computer course - Sharvari will be keeping regular track of the kids and will liaison between them and the computer center to make sure things are moving smoothly. The other vols will of course assist her when needed.
• Conduct aptitude tests for children - This will help us know what the children's interests are and also what career streams they are likely to succeed in. Sharvari is in contact with one such counseller and was supposed to conduct the tests this weekend, but I heard a couple of hours back from her that the counseller had some urgent work and hence had to postpone the tests for the following week.
• Subscribe English newspaper to the basti for a month - This is aimed at encouraging the kids to read the newspaper daily. They will also have to read and explain articles of their choice every weekend and also get the meanings of new words that they see in the paper. I was supposed to subscribe the paper but could not do it before I left Bombay. Request one of theBorivali vols to please take this up.
• Conduct competitions to kids of the three centers, at the pada - This is for encouraging competitive spirit among the children and also to help them mingle with kids of other centers. The competitions will be conducted sometime next month andPadmaja will soon find out from the pada if the people are willing to host the children for the competition. Logistics and arranging the competitions will be a nightmare but am sure the Bombay team can pull this off. Someone please start a new thread on this.
• Outing for children - The Borivali kids will be taken out somewhere next month, center vols will decide on this soon.

Andheri Pada

The common notion is that there are a lot of kids that are interested in Khambacha pada and not so much in Gaundevi pada (Our main center). So out of the 5 vols present currently, two (Padmaja and someone else with her) will go to the former and try to start something in that pada itself. Since we have another NGO working there on Sundays, Padmaja will also contact them and DI will try to work along with that NGO.

Also since Child marriage is a common problem in that place, Rupesh suggested we work with NGOs that work for women welfare and get them to educate the people in the pada about the evils of getting their children married at an early age. Pooja and Padmaja will follow up on this. Once we are able to do this and try it out at Andheri, this can also be tried out at our Thane center.

Wada

We were also wondering how to make forays into villages in Maharashtra when we remembered a request for help from one of the schools in the Wada taluka of Mumbai. Vijay, our contact for this project, is coordinating with our vols and the school to help secure a water filter for the school. Once this goes thru, we will hopefully  have access to the school children thru the headmaster and we can try and start a center at Wada. Since this taluka comprises of a lot of villages that are not very well off, we can try and form a team to work in some of these places. Padmaja and I are already in touch with Vijay for this and the guy (he seems like a very dedicated person) has put forward some ideas too. More updates on this in a separate thread.

Jamuna and Rupesh had also given some very interesting information on other NGOs and GoI schemes for education. All these will come in handy in our quest to make our nation a better place to live in.

Since we had conducted the meeting on a weekday morning, vols from other centers could not make it, understandably so. There were two very fruitful meetings back to back this week (The above one in Bombay and one in Madras, on Saturday) where we all shared very useful info within the team. Natarajan will send the MoM for the latter meeting.

Thanks all.

PS My luggage, along with the paper that had the notes from this meeting, was lost during my trip to Madras. So in case I missed some points, please add them to this thread.

Thanks and Regards,

Varun Rangarajan

DreamIndia

Borivali updates

The last couple of weeks have been very hectic for the volunteers of the Borivali center. We selected four students to take enroll in a MS-CIT computer course (Project documents attached) and finally paid the money for them today. The course is for three months and will begin on 20th of April. The project documents have more details on the same.

 

On the 14th, we ushered in the new set of vols from St Andrews College who chose DI to do their summer Social work course. Borivali might see another new chapter for DI, as we spoke to another group of settlers outside tour main Borivali center and started classes for the kids there today morning. Also Attached is a brief course material that we had given to the students for engaging this new batch of kids for the next five days. Considering that the community has also offered us its temple space to conduct our classes, let us hope that this new chapter does well in the days and months to come.

 

Sharvari and Mr. Gawarikar are actively keeping watch on the students and the new volunteers and will be doing so for the rest of the summer. They will also be trying to arrange career counselling sessions for the kids in one of the upcoming weekends.

 

Jamuna is pursuing trying to secure summer part-time jobs for some of the students here as well as exploring options of putting Geeta's cousin (who had dropped off school long time back), back in Open School.

 

Overall, the team has done a very good job and team work was at its very best.

 

More encouraging factors were how the children were very open to the volunteers about what they wanted to do (Geeta had only suggested the idea of joining the computer course) and that the parents have a lot of faith in us (Deepak's father: "I leave my son to you guys. I do not know how to guide his career, just let me know what I should do to support and you all take care of his career please").

 

This leaves us with even greater responsibility but we are sure we will succeed in making good citizens out of these students.

Jai Bharath!

Thanks and Regards,

Varun R

Report and Snaps of KK Children Home Visit - 12th April, 2009

Dear Friends,

Last Sunday, Dream India friends from Adyar Chapter visited KK Children home, provided dinner to kids and had wonderful time with them. Shyam, Parthy, Veena and Karthik reached much earlier and started playing games with the children. JP, Hari, Venkatesh, Abitha and myself reached KK around 7.30 after collecting the dinner from hotel. The Children had asked for Paratha, sweets and juice - We got everything they asked for and they really relished the dinner.

Many of them were asking for the missing "White"[ Fair] Uncle - Mr.Varun was the one they were looking for. We had a few new friends join us last weekend for the trip - our web admin Mani's friend Veena from TCS, my brother Venkatesh and my niece Abitha. As we went a bit late, we could not carry on the games or songs post dinner.

TCS - MS:

TCS associates from my previous account MorganStanley, thanks to JP, would be taking care of the monthly requirements of the home in the attached request form. Also, they would be providing Lunch monthly once to the children.

Next Visit:

DI - TCS - MS: Sunday May 3rd, Lunch 12.30 - 2.00 PM

Dream India: Sunday May 10th, Dinner 7 - 8.30 PM

Snaps:




Immediate Requirements:

Medicine and other items - Taken care by TCS MS

Doctor visit - In the process of finding one.

Please do join us for any of the above visits as possible. There are lot of girls in the home and would be great if female volunteers can come in to chat with them. The time you spend with them would definitely help them a lot for that is what they miss in their life.

Regards,
Natarajan
Dream India
www.dreamindia2020.org

"Hesitating to act because the whole vision might not be achieved, or because others do not yet share it, is an attitude that only hinders progress." - Mahatma

Educational support for Ms.Bhuvaneswari - B.E CSC

Dear Friends,

I am happy to let you all know that for the second consecutive year we are supporting Ms.Bhuvaneswari, B.E Computer science student at Jerusalem College of Engineering, Chennai. We got to know the student through Ms.Lalitha madam of New life Charity Trust. Last year DI decided to provide 20k as partial support towards her college fee.

Parthy and I met the student and her mom today morning and gave her a DD of Rs.20,000. Our team can be really proud of the student. She has scored an unbelievable 91% in the first semester. I am sure this student would definitely bring glory to our team by her excellent performance.

On behalf of our team we conveyed our best wishes to her. Attached the project report for your reference.

Regards,
Natarajan
Dream India
www.dreamindia2020.org

"Hesitating to act because the whole vision might not be achieved, or because others do not yet share it, is an attitude that only hinders progress." - Mahatma

DI Chennai Adyar Chapter updates

Dear Friends,

After the wonderful Pollachi program last weekend, this weekend was spent at Chennai by conducting weekend classes at Adyar school and visiting kaakum Karangal old age home.

We have started teaching Grammar for the children, especially for the 10 students who are really ready to move on the next level. Our friends like Sreeja, Kavitha and Poornima continue to provide special attention to the children who find it tough to move to next level. We also have letter writing exercises as a part of the classes.

Every other weekend, we conduct tests either written or some other participation way and award the kids with small prizes. Also, each class, we make the kids read 3 questions from "Dr.Kalaamai Kelungal" [ Ask questions to Dr.APJ Kalam ] book and a selected paragraph from "My experiments with truth".

KK:

It has become next home for many of our volunteers. The way the residents interact with us and affection and blessing they shower on us is amazing. With us, they come out of all the inhibition and speak freely. We have planned to visit KK next month on May 3rd and this time one hour earlier so that we can perform some program to entertain them as well.

We had Mr.Mani from Build Future India join us this weekend for KK visit. He had come along with his wife and Kid Master Sriram. Elavarasi, Ravin and our friend Anand also joined us.

Snaps:




Regards,
Natarajan
Dream India

"Hesitating to act because the whole vision might not be achieved, or because others do not yet share it, is an attitude that only hinders progress." - Mahatma

Elocution, Essay, Quiz and Drawing Competitions@Pollachi Rural Schools

Hi Everyone,

Its my privilege to share our sweet memories about our trip .
This weekend created a new landmark for Dream India. The Chennai DI team volunteers(Natarajan,Parthy,Varun,Ravin and Shyam) visited the village of Kothavadi a small village near Pollachi (Coimbatore District) and conducted a variety of competitions for the children studying in three different Government Mid schools in the Kinathukadavu region (Near Pollachi ).

We all know it is very difficult to work in villages unless we have strong local support. So i reached the schools weeks before and gave them the topics for conducting the drawing, elocution and the essay writing competitions during the course of the week (March 24 to March 27) by personally visiting and confirming with the HM of different schools.

The rest of us, Natarajan, Parthy, Ravin and varun reached the place(Kothavadi) early Saturday morning.But things didnt work as per our schedule (a little disappointment) .Im really sorry (for Natarajan,parthy,Varun ) its my responsibility .So we moved to pollachi for purchasing the momentos for the chief guests.

In the evening all the five DI members(Nata,Varun,Parthy,Ravin and Shyam) had a chance to meet the kothavadi Staff and HM (Retired husband and Wife over 40 years of teaching experience in kothavadi ) who had dedicated their entire life for the benefit of students (We salute their commitment towards their work).We had a long chat and the teachers were sharing their experiences as a staff in that village and steps that they have taken for overcoming difficulties at time of problems .

The ideas shared:


1.Parents and teachers relationship.
2.Passion and commitment of staffs towards the students
3.No mutual bonding between students and staffs
4.No proper hygiene awareness created among students(young children) by the staffs


Their ideas needs a standing ovation.

Next(Sunday) morning students started arriving one by one .But the Kondampatty mid school boycotted the entire function (Except few kids from standard 1 to 5) because of the HM who has never reached their students and conveyed our invitation for prize distribution ceremony held at kothavadi.But still then i want to make sure that everyone turn up for the function (By arranging a mini bus)but no one turned up.

We conducted the quiz contest for 9 teams from two different schoolsAt 11am stage was occupied by distinguished chief guests - The retired HM of the school, the Principal from an esteemed institution NGM college Pollachi(Over 35 years of experience as a principal and was popularly known as Green man (Green revolutionalist)),the village president and the head masters . The DGP of the place also initially consented to attend, but had some last minute change of plan, so could not make it.

I took the responsibilty of introduction about the chief guests. There was then a speech from a girl who had won competitions at the district level for her brilliant speeches( Especially in the felicitation ceremony of Mr. Mylsamy Annadurai Project director Chandraayan) she had applauses from all people.

The principal (NGM college of arts and science) spoke on the need for education by quoting a example of hero from the same village (Mr. Mylsamy Annadurai Project director Chandraayan).Hats off sir we need your support always.

The speech from the HM exhorting the current crop of teachers to build a strong nexus among the three pillars for a successful schooling experience - The teachers themselves, the children, and the parents. He also stressed the need for maintaining a clean environment in the village and how they should use the assistance that we youth from organizations like DI, come forward to offer. Also was highlighted that no child will be refused to an opportunity for either primary or higher education due to caste or lack of required finances and that DI would offer its full support for the latter.

Then the much awaited prize distribution ceremony where the children from 1st to 5th standards were given one prize each - a coloring box - for their efforts in drawing. Elocution and Essay writing had three winners each - the first prize was a big English-Tamil dictionary, second prize a book on Dr Kalam and one on Swami Vivekananda, third prize were books by Dr Kalam and Mahatma Gandhi. All prizes were accompanied by trophies of various sizes. We later found out from the kids that the trophies were liked a lot. Some of the boys were already getting ready for our next event in the place and were eager to know when we would return. This is the first time most of the students were participating in an event like this and the cheers that each prize winner received from fellow students as they went up to collect their prize, proved the huge popularity of the event.

It is to be noted here that the well respected HM was the first to ensure that the so-called lower castes in the village receive access to education. Such was his powerful presence in yesteryear's society (We are talking about late 1950s here) that no one dared raise a voice against him when he suggested and implemented the idea of including the under privileged children in the schools.

Another interesting anecdote from the counselor 'How many of you from the cities have had this experience? I am sure none of you. My father and I were both taught by this HM during our school years. He has literally brought up two generations of people in this village.'

It became obvious that the teachers of yesteryear were far more interested in actual child welfare and had a far greater influence in shaping the career and more importantly, the personality of a child than the current crop. The high salaries of teachers in TN (yes, it seems it is a fact that the teachers in govt. schools in TN are very well paid) leads to distraction and non-chalant behavior that in turn affects their performance. When we have teachers who don't even bother telling the students that it is not a very good idea to defecate in the open (The school has a small gully behind it that is being used as an open toilet despite the presence of properly constructed toilets within the campus) or that the class rooms be maintained cleanly or that the kids should wear slippers all the time when outside, it shows either the ignorance of the teachers themselves or their I-don't-care attitude that is very very dangerous.

The entire trip taught DI a lot of lessons:
(For instance ALWAYS take the written permission of the Education officer of the area, before venturing into any school project, this will ensure better co operation from the school teachers)
and gave us some very valuable contacts in the village .

Thanks to the village ward counselor(Mr Sivakumar) support, the retired HM of the school who offered his words of advise.

Thanks to my entire family who were simply amazing in their co operation in packing of sweets and preparation of juices for chief guests as well as students and assistance for this entire project .

We require all these people for any future ventures that we make in this village and we do have some ideas like ramping up the library that exists in the school, set up literary forums which will meet every month and conduct competitions or simply exchange ideas. We have taken the first step in this direction and hope to make the next move soon to identify the future leaders of this place. After all this is the village of Dr Mylsamy Annadurai, Project Director of the Chandrayaan 1 project of the ISRO.

We have uploaded the photos of our sweet memories.


On the very next day the respected HMs called up and thanked our DI effort and passion towards our work.

Also believe me students called up(They got my number from the HM) and expressed their happiness saying ("Anna we miss u a lot and when will you come back to our school again for conducting the fuction and other girl cryingly said this is my first time im performing a bharathanatiyam in a stage like these). I have no answers for them .

I should personally thank Natarajan and all the DI members for giving me an oppurtunity to work a project like these.

Thanking you
Shyamsundar Sivalingam
Dream India

You Are Invited

Dear Friends,
I met HM of the different schools some weeks before for seeking permissions for conducting programs like elocution ,quiz,and essay writing for the students from 6-10 standards and Drawing for schools from 1-5 standards .They readily accepted our request and granted us the permission .We will be conducting programs seperately for different schools and the prize distribution will be conducted commonly at one place .

Date for elocution competition, quiz and others:
We have decided to conduct the program on Saturday, Mar 28th, 2009. The prize distribution would be done on 29th of the same month.Here are the details of school in which the competition is going to be conducted .

Govt Schools Participating:
1.Mid school ,Nallitipalayam
2.Mid school ,Kondampatty
3.Mid school,Kothavady

Contact Persons:
S.Mahalingam HM ,Nallitipalayam
E.Arunachalam HM ,Kondampatty
K.Periyasamy HM ,Kothavady

Hereby i welcome all the members of Dream India ,Supporting members ,Volunteers and everyone to our function .Please provide us your valuable feedbacks and suggestions for making our event a grand successful one .I
have spotted the address of prize distribution ceremony (Just below).
Date:29th march 2009
Venue:Govt Mid School Kothavady
Landmark:kinathukadavu
Place:Pollachi

Thanking you
Shyamsundar Sivalingam
Dream India