The first six months of the year witnessed the MAD expanding from 4 to 11 cities. On 10-12 April, the First MAD National Conference took place at the Avenue Regent, Cochin. Excerpts from the conference are as follows -

The 3 day event, popularly called as the MADCON was attended by (then) 8 cit- ies. The idea was to spread the MAD process to the new cities, working on the same framework at a national level. It was also intended to be a platform for volunteers from different cities to inter- act and mingle with each other. The first

ideas and how to implement them. By the end of the first day, the boundaries between the various cities had com- pletely resigned to the world of oblivion; a perfect manifestation of national inte-

constant discussions and debates, the delegates went for a House Boat cruise in Allepey. Enjoyed authentic Kerala sea food of Kappa and Meencurry, Karimeen etc beside the serene backwaters. The conference was coming to an end and one by one the delegates started depart- ing to the airport. Truly, the MAD Con- ference was an amazing start to the academic year. Parul from Bombay has a post on the blog; read ithe re.

Ashoka is a community of leading social entrepreneurs from around the world who work collectively to transform society and design new ways for people to become more productive, entrepreneurial and globally integrated.

The purpose of the Youth Social Entrepreneur Competition was to discover and promote youth who had positively en- gaged with and impacted their communities.

There were 521 entries for the competition from around the world. Of these, the judging panel selected 15 as finalists, of which MAD was judged the winner through a massive online voting process.

The award has given MAD a global platform on which to raise awareness about volunteering. The project is now a global platform for youth who want to impact their community by volunteering.

In June 2009, Jithin C. Nedumala, National President, went to Boston to address the World Youth Summit, where he presented the fundamental equations of the organization and its implementation across different locations in the country.

The placements activities started off with the V.Y.B Camp held for the kids from Valsalya Bhavan, YMCA and Bal Bhavan. The placement coor- dinators visited their respective centers and gave the kids a talk about possible future careers and how placements will help them.

The kids got a dive into some rich cul- ture in the course of their visit to Amaara Coffee Shop. They got a bril- liant opportunity to interact with artists from different fields.

A study tour to Rajagiri College of Sci- ence and Technology was organized to expose them to engineering as a career possibility. Read on.

nity to visit the Casino Hotel, Willingdon Island. They got a vantage view of the working of the hotel industry in the course of their interaction with the ho- tel staff. Paul has written class 9ish lookin

A field trip was organized to C-SiS (Centre for Science in Society), CUSAT. They were enlightened on topics like resonance, pixels and the formation of images in digital cameras etc. and witnessed some of the many wonders of science in everyday life. Harsha & Blesson share theire xp eri en ce.

A legal awareness camp will hap- pen soon considering the number of our kids who want to be law- yers.

inter-center talent show for our kids. It will be a day of competitions and the five best programmes will be shown to a larger audience.

We are also happy to announce that 13 of our kids wrote the 10th std. examina- tion and all of them passed. 11 of them have continued with school and Binoy has been placed with Skiltek for Voca- tional Training. MAD is pooling in all its resources synergistically to make the placements projects work and to ensure that our kids have the best opportuni- ties available to them. This is the ulti- mate goal which we have been trying to achieve.

A trip to Adarsh centre for spastic/ disabled children is being planned. This is intended as a career and general aware- ness program.

The placements activities started off with a V.Y.B camp held for the kids from Valsalya Bhavan, YMCA and Bal Bhavan. The place- ment coordinators visited their respective centres in the beginning of the year and gave the kids a talk about possible future ca- reers and how placements will help them.

e y e s . In Physics lab, the kids were taught to use thermometers and stop clocks. They also learned to find out the time period of a simple pen- dulum. There was a PHYSICS PAVILLION which had a marvelous set-up named the \u201cCircus Of Energy\u201d to explain transformation of en- ergy. It also had telescopes through which the kids viewed distant buildings. The kids were in awe watching the fountain test and pop test of hydrogen in Chemistry lab. They performed litmus test and displacement reactions; burnt magnesium ribbon, etc.Biology lab had formalin-protected specimens and hanging skeletons. They prepared slides of skin and leaf cells and watched it under a micro- scope. The lady-in-charge of the Science Park showed them the use of pulleys, periscopes and a hydro-electric generator which lit col- orful LEDs. In Computer lab they opened websites and familiarized with the working of Google earth. The kids went to alib r ar y which showcased a huge collection books. Maths lab was emporium of wooden models of varied geometric shapes with which they proved Pythagoras theorem and found out the sum of angles of a triangle and a quadrilateral. A jigsaw puzzle of a cube was also solved. The

Sunday afternoons are no longer about trying to forget the Monday blues flashing in the background..its about having the best time of the week at HG. Accomplishment is not accompanied by fretting, being poker faced

On the 24th of July, 40 volunteers around South India geared up for one of the most memorable MAD meetings ever, the Mentor Training at Chennai. A cheerful

into what lay ahead for the next 3 days of our learning experience there. Intro- ductions & ice breakers over, we were promptly divided into teams.The abun-

dance of activities (& the squabbles at the score board) over the course of the three days not only taught us a lot, but helped us understand that we all are children at heart & that no number of birthdays are going to change that! We learnt about various methods of teach- ing, class control & about including tal- ent-specific activities with our syllabus training. I am very grateful to the EZ

Vidya team & MAD for having presented us with this unforgettable experience. Ku- dos to MAD Chennai for being the perfect host (not to mention including certain life savers like the AC hall & plentiful cups of coffee!). We left Chennai armed with the knowledge that we were going to take teaching to a new level at MAD