Deepam Quarterly Newsletter (Jul-Sep13)

1|Page

www.deepam.in

Contents
Quarterly update (Jul-Sep13) ....................................................................................................................... 3 Events ............................................................................................................................................................ 3 Scholarship program @ WM Center ......................................................................................................... 3 VRS Centers day out on Madras Day .................................................................................................... 4 I- day celebration across Deepam............................................................................................................. 5 Teachers Day celebrations @ Deepam .................................................................................................... 7 Uniform Distribution @ WM Center ......................................................................................................... 8 Uniform Distribution @ KBM Center ........................................................................................................ 8 Induction program @ Olcott Center ......................................................................................................... 9 Featured Volunteers ..................................................................................................................................... 9 Muthuselvi's performance .......................................................................................................................... 11

For any queries or clarifications, please reach out to janavi@deepam.in 2|Page www.deepam.in

Quarterly update (Jul-Sep13)

By JanaviShyam Seasons greetings from Deepam! Our new center @ DrPV Rao School in RA Puram was inaugurated in the first week of July. The center is a home for orphaned children. Roughly 30 children will henceforth benefit from our presence there. The children, though from underprivileged background, are quite ambitious and expressed their career vision in becoming an IAS officer, Collector, Pilot etc. The school is doing an invaluable service in bringing them up. Deepam's association will hopefully enlighten their lives

The other highlight during the quarter was World Banks confirmation of their support to Deepam. World Bank's Chennai office has given a financial grant to Deepam, to support the children. Featured volunteers continued to set the example with their exemplary work towards training our children. Praveen Kumar, Balaji, Sindhuja and Rohit were the recipients for the 3rd Quarter. They were presented with gift vouchers of Rs. 1000/- each.

Events
Scholarship program @ WM Center
ByPraveen Saturday, 13th July 2013 at 9:45 am, I receive a greeting in English from Ajay - "Good morning sir. How are you ?" and a few minutes later, Jyothi says, "All these kids are very small !". This evoked an internal response screaming "They have all grown up !". Ajay and Jyothi are just a few of themany grown up Deepam Alumni who held the light this day. We invited six such children from yesteryear Deepam West Mambalam and their parents to honour these kids for striving hard in academics despite their various travails. Scholarships were given to them towards their education. 3|Page www.deepam.in

Emotions were running high amongst the kids as it brought back tearful happy memories of the school and Deepam; while Ajay's grandmother was really proud of his achievement - joyous trinkets down her cheek showing all that the small token meant to them. It was a proud day for every parent present there. If one side presents the past, the other side of the coin is our current Deepam kids. Flanked by their seniors on one side, and volunteers and parents from the other 3 sides, the wondrous children were all attention to every word, cheer and tear. Though some might have even been overwhelmed, it was as joyous an occasion for them as well. Many of them recognized their 'annas' and 'akkas', applauding incessantly with tiny hands when they received their awards. Grand promises were made by them to emulate their seniors and be 'big little stars' like them. And, so we have six new stars in the Deepam sky

VRS Centers day out on Madras Day

By AnuradhaMurali As part of the Madras Week celebration across the city, there was an exhibition at the CP Art Center, Alwarpet. There were paintings, sculptures and models, describing Madras as it was many centuries ago, and chronologically tracing its history down the ages, until the British took over. On August 24, VRS center kids were treated to a one-hour outing of this exhibition about the Madras Region before the British. Our group of 18 kids and 5 volunteers reached there in ten minutes, after finishing off with the English session by 11.30 AM. Earlier, two volunteers had checked the place to ascertain if it would be appropriate for our ten year olds. We were lucky to get one of the organizers to give the children a guided tour of the exhibition. He patiently explained all the facts in Tamil, pausing now and then to query them on some interesting facts, such as the origin of the word 'Catamaran', or how 'Mylapore' got its name. Few visitors joined our 4|Page www.deepam.in

group to benefit from the guided tour, and some friendly onlookers asked the kids which school they were from. For their part the kids were very well behaved, and attempted to understand the context of the exhibits. We relished the short outing as well as the sweet fivestar that was handed out at the end to each of us. Here are some pics of the short and sweet Madras day outing.

I- day celebration across Deepam

By JanaviShyam Olcott Center

5|Page

www.deepam.in

WM Center

VRS Center

6|Page

www.deepam.in

Teachers Day celebrations @ Deepam

By JanaviShyam

Teachers Day @ Our WM Center

Olcott Center

VRS Center

7|Page

www.deepam.in

Uniform Distribution @ WM Center

By R.Rajagopalan

For the 4th year in succession, additional sets of Uniforms were distributed to children studying in Class I to V of Sri Venkata Nivasam Primary School, West Mambalam today. Deepam has sponsored a major portion of the expenditure (cost of ready-made Uniforms to 42 boys and girls). At the behest of School management, couple of Deepam WM volunteers happily agreed to give away the dresses to the kids.

Uniform Distribution @ KBM Center

By JanaviShyam

8|Page

www.deepam.in

Induction program @ Olcott Center

By JanaviShyam

Volunteer induction programs were held atOlcottcenter in Aug and in WM center in Jun. Deepam has now formalized the volunteer guidelines which were explained to all new volunteers and also distributed as hard copies for their reference.

Featured Volunteers
By JanaviShyam

Mahalakshmi from DrPV RaoHigh School center (RA Puram)was awarded the "Featured Volunteer of the Month" for Aug'13. Veda Maam quotes about Mahalakshmi "Mahalakshmi has been volunteering with us in the KC centre last year and is now continuing in Dr P V Rao High School. She is always willing to go that extra mile to make things happen. Last year, she took it upon herself to train the children of KC Centre for the skit for the annual day and ensured that it went well.The children in the new centreDr. P V Rao High School are also fond of her so much so that when some of the children did cards for their teachers for Teacher's day, one of them insisted that he addresses it to her"

9|Page

www.deepam.in

Sindhuja from Olcott center was awarded the "Featured Volunteer of the Month" for Jul'13 Sugumaran, center head @ Olcott had this to say about Sindhuja- "Sinduja is always present, smiling and contributing. She has evolved well over the last year to take on more responsibility at Olcott. She has not only contributed individually, but also brought her friends and relatives along to Deepam. She is a law graduate and her works portrait the same in taking bold decisions and confidence in arguing for a valid point from her side. Her boldness reflects on our kids to enable them in walking a step ahead. A recent example was during the team segregation, where most of the kids preferred to join with her team. She led the initiative in preparing the curriculum from Olcotts end during May month along with her friends. She also worked on the field to prepare an assessment plan for this academic year"

10 | P a g e

www.deepam.in

Muthuselvi's performance
By V.Karthikeyan

When Deepam was started 5 years ago, we had the simple idea of volunteers coming together every week and teaching children computers &English. Over the years, the simple focus on doing a few things right has helped us 'Discover' what Deepam could actually become. The entire Deepam team started to Dream collectively..volunteers had questions on 'what next' for the children, after the Deepam class at schools. The result of that collective Dream / Questioning was the 'STARS' program. STARS program envisions every Deepam child who shows promise, receiving financial assistance all the way to college graduation. They never have to fear dropping out due to lack of monies. Muthuselvi was the 1st recipient of the STARS scholarship program. Her sincere attitude and steady progress encouraged us to support her college academic fee. Giving the program a huge boost, she topped her class in the 2nd semester. She studied in a Tamil medium school all her life and had some initial challenges in transitioning to English medium. Nevertheless, she is a fighter and she is now a topper of her class. (She is doing BE Computer Engineering at a private college in Chennai)

Those who are interested in Deepam with respect to volunteering/ Donations/ Events for kids/ other information, please reach out to janavi@deepam.in For more information, checkwww.deepam.in or visit us at www.facebook.com/deepam.chennai

11 | P a g e

www.deepam.in