Ergo November 24

Monday, November 24, 2008

ABYTE OF LIFE

GUNN’ROSESRELOADED

after 17 years

FREE CIRCULATION

Vol. 2No. 223

Economical prosthetic arm

Chennai-based team wins business plancompetition in the general category

0510

A MAD

INITIATIVE

Bhumi, a city-based NGOwith several volunteersfrom IT companies, is oneof the partners of the‘Make a Difference’(MAD) initiative that gotthe Ashoka SocialEntrepreneurship Award.

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P H O T O : R . R A V I N D R A N

ERGO

Monday, November 24, 2008

NAMMA CHENNAI

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Calling bold and beautiful girls

The Chennai auditions for the Pantaloons Femina Miss IndiaSouth 2009 will be held on November 25 at PantaloonsStore, Nelson Manickam Road at 3.30 p.m. Fashion designerPrasad Bidappa will judge the contestants.

Autumn hues

Twilight tones, jewel colours, dashes ofyellow, pink and green among others. It’s anew season for Esprit.The lifestyle brand showcased its autumn/ holiday 2008/2009 collection to the glitteratiof Chennai at its new Esprit Heritage store inNungambakkam. Adding colour and style tothe new range of collection were models likeNina Manuel, Pia Trivedi, Candice Pinto,Shayan Munshi and Acquin Paes.

P H O T O S : R . R A V I N D R A N

Monday, November 24, 2008

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T

hirteen-year-old Ashok is the heroof his class. He knows the nuancesof computer better than most of his classmates studying in a Cor-poration High School near Paalavak-kam. “I have just finished MS Office,”he declares at an orphanage in Kottiva-kam, where he is one among severalstudents attending a weekend classconducted by Bhumi, a city-basedNGO that has volunteers from a num-ber of the IT companies. Ashok is one of 400 students in thecity to learn computer science at the‘Kanini’ initiative of Bhumi. Volunteersof Bhumi dedicate their weekends toteach the students computer science.Recently, through a tie-up with Co-chin-based NGO ‘Make a Difference’(MAD), they have also started teaching them basics of the English languagethrough activity-based learning, simi-lar to the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan’s pro- ject in the state schools. Last week,MAD bagged the Ashoka Social Entre-preneurship Award, the only NGO fromthe country to do in the international-ly-acclaimed award that had entriesfrom 64 countries. When Ergo caught up last Saturday with a group of Bhumi’s volunteers,they were elated at being a part of theinternationally-acclaimed award. E. Ayyanar, an employee of CTS and anactive volunteer in Bhumi, explainedabout MAD: “Make A Difference is sim-ilar to the Govt’s activity-based learn-ing.Through flash cards, match sticks,drawings and five verbs-per-day meth-od, we teach English to these kids dur-ing weekends. Instead of making themmemorize the words blindly, we makethem understand the meaning andthen learn the word. It is really working and these kids have improved a lot.”

Kanini initiative

When Bhumi was launched in 2006,the volunteers decided to make com-puter science education for school stu-dent their primary objective. As part of the ‘Kanini’ iniatitive, they set up com-puter lab facilities in four orphanagesand one slum locality of the city. Thelabs served as the weekend classrooms.M. Aruna, a volunteer working with theFord says, “We have provided old PCsto all the orphanages we take class. Weteach the kids the basics in computerscience. Children studying from Std V to IX are our target group. First wemake them overcome the fear of using computers. Then slowly we start tomake them draw and write alphabets.Its two years we started this and mostof the students are now well-versed inMS Ofﬁce.”

Self-ﬁnanced

“There are absolutely no sponsorsfor Bhumi,” says Dr Prahalathan, presi-dent of Bhumi, says. “All the volunteerspay out of their pockets and it isenough to manage our needs. Thevolunteers are trained by the TeachersFoundation on how to handle classes. We have a monthly orientation classfor the newcomers apart from regularupdates through our Orkut commun-ities – ‘Make a Difference – Bhumi-Chennai’ and ‘Bhumi, Chennai’.The ultimate aim of Bhumi volun-teers is to reach as many children aspossible.

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A MAD initiative

A group of working professionals set aside some time in their weekends toreach out under-privileged kids

Visit Bhumi’s websitewww.bhumichennai.orgto know more about theNGO. If you wish to jointhem in their activities,get started by creating auser account.

V.HARIPRIYA

haripriya@goergo.in

A few of Bhumi’s volunteers at an orphanage.

PHOTO: R.RAVINDRAN