Thursday, June 18, 2009
03
YOCee, New No 15B,Karpagam Garden,1 Main Road, Adyar
T
his may be just another addressfor those who frequent this calmstreet on the way to Besant Nagar.But not for the many children wholove writing and seeing their name inprint. The lumber room in the cellar of this four-flat residential apartment ishome to a children’s magazine.It’s here that eight colourful pages of content, written entirely by children,are collated, edited and designed onPagemaker, to finally release
YOCee
(‘think’ in Tamil). It’s also here that the young team meets up a week beforeevery issue.Besides its online presence (www.yo-cee.in), around 2,500 free copies of
YO-Cee
get circulated every month at eightdifferent hotspots in namma Chennaithat are fre-quented by children.This also includes the copies of thenewsletter each of the writers (studentreporters) distribute in their school andneighbourhood.
Once upon a time…
Giving wing to these young minds isR. Revathi, who is running the newslet-ter in Chennai since 2006 and earlier inMumbai.Revathi quit her job with CanaraBank when in Mumbai to spend time with her growing son. “I realised I hadto make use of my free time in a morecreative way as well as engage my sonin the process,” Revathi recalls. “Ours was a 17-floor staff quarters with 80-90children in the apartment. I observedthat kids love to talk about all that hap-pens in school.My first exercise towards that wasthrough a notice board made from anold carton that I hung next to the lift, which displayed poems, riddlesand anything original penned by children.”The makeshift notice board becamea hit and soon a scribble magazine
Kids Magic
was started, circulated only forthe apartment inmates. The run con-tinued for 11 months until Revathi’sfamily moved out from the quarters ontransfer. “Some decided to keep it go-ing online through Google pages andOrkut. But, the last I heard was somekids are still running
Kids Magic
in asmall way in the apartment,” she ex-claims.
Calling writers
Revathi’s son has grown up – Prasan-na is now pursuing his Engineering atIIT-Madras. Her husband’s transfer-able job means she might yet have tomove to another city, but her passionto “get the children out to have theirown space for news, events and otherhappenings” doesn’t stop.She decided to launch a similar ini-tiative in Chennai when she came hereon transfer.Every year the director (as she callsherself) recruits a team of children asstudent reporters who are assigned thetask of gathering reports for
YOCee
. Thechildren are from different schools andfrom Class VI and above, though thistime she has an enthusiastic girl fromClass V enrolled as reporter. They havetheir visiting cards and a ‘Reporter’sHandbook’.“They are free to write whatever they want, but not about students who se-cure 490 marks… I ask for inspirationalstories,” says Revathi about the liberty the cub reporters get.However, running
YOCee
has been achallenge. “This time I received around90 applicants for the student reporters’post. It is a tough exercise filtering them down. Some show the initial en-thusiasm but later drop out. Betweenunit tests and examinations, I some-times have to make a reminder call onthe assignment report that is pending with them.”
YOCee weekly?
The former banker has many moreplans. “I want to start paying them fortheir reports, form an editorial team,extend it as a weekly tabloid, register with the Newspapers Society of India,look if somebody can replicate thesame model in a different city… ,” shelists outs her many plans.It is a task, Revathi says, that willpave the way if she looks at
YOCee
witha commercial bent of mind. The new-sletter’s ad rates per sq cm start fromRs. 500, and its revenue picks up during summer camp time, which helps hercover the expense for the year.
■
LIFFY THOMAS
liffythomas@goergo.in
The annual Reporters Meet was recently held atChildren’s Club, Mylapore. Their are 30 enrolledas student reporters for 2009. (Below) Revathiand the YOCee badge.
PHOTOS: M. KARUNAKARAN
This time I received around 90applicants for the studentreporters’ post. It is a toughexercise narrowing them down.Some show the initial enthusiasmbut later drop out. Between unittests and examinations, Isometimes have to make areminder call on the assignmentreport that is pending with them
A banker who quit her job to be with her son started a scribble magazine to engage him,herself and neighbourhood kids.In Chennai, it took form as YOCee,a website-cum-newsletter for Chennai kids, with reports by school students on activitiesconcerning children
You see YOCee?
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