 P LACEMENT ACTIVITIES ARE IN FULL

SWING. T HE KIDS HAVE BEEN VISITING

COLLEGES, SCIENCE PARKS, HOTELS Issue 1.1 2009
A ND EVEN WARSHIPS…………...... 2

You know you don’t need capes and tights to Make A Difference
 THE KIDS AND THEIR AWESOMENESS. -NOORUL HIJAZ
THE M AKE A DIFFERENCE TREE, ITS
LEAVES AND BRANCHES…….. 3

 J UST MADDING ....... ... 4

 A ND FINALLY— THE PRESIDENT ’ S

Make a Difference
NOTE AND THE PEOPLE YOU CAN
BLAME……………... 5

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 -
MADLY
MAD bagged the coveted Ashoka Youth Social Entrepreneur

The National Conference

Award last year in the month of November last year.

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

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
day was to “Dream”. To dream of new
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-
gration. The second day was to “Decide”
the MAD policies. And rest of year wants
us to “Do”. After two full tiring days of
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 it here.
was to discover and promote youth who had positively en-
gaged with and impacted their communities.
Conquering the World: Ashoka Style
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.

Read On.

And the winner is

Content by—Jr, Karthik

 MAD believes in not just educating the children, but,
The placements activities started off with the V.Y.B Camp held for the
also developing them in all relevant areas so that
kids from Valsalya Bhavan, YMCA and Bal Bhavan. The placement coor-
they will fare well in life. Therefore, the goal MAD
dinators visited their respective centers and gave the kids a talk about
possible future careers and how placements will help them.

has been targeting is to ensure that our kids have a

better future, a better say in tomorrow’s world.

Our kids were at the Southern Naval

Command. Read about it here.

Amaara cultural presentation

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.

Rajagiri Engineering Awareness Program

A study tour to Rajagiri College of Sci-
A field trip was organized to C-SiS (Centre for Science in Society), CUSAT. ence and Technology was organized to
They were enlightened on topics like resonance, pixels and the formation of expose them to engineering as a career
images in digital cameras etc. and witnessed some of the many wonders of possibility. Read on.
science in everyday life. Harsha & Blesson share their experience.
Casino Hotel—The kids had an opportu-
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
We are also happy to announce that 13 looking report here.
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
 A trip to Adarsh centre for spastic/
resources synergistically to make the
disabled children is being planned. This is
intended as a career and general aware- placements projects work and to ensure
ness program. that our kids have the best opportuni-
ties available to them. This is the ulti-
 A Chartered accountancy career presenta- mate goal which we have been trying to
tion will be done by Elizabeth Benny. achieve.

 A legal awareness camp will hap-

pen soon considering the number
of our kids who want to be law-
yers.
 A visit to the National Institute of
Niki Oceanography is being discussed.

MAD’S GOT TALENT: This is by far

the biggest event MAD has ever
planned. We’re planning to do an
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.

2
Arjun David, Azeera, Blesson, Harsha, Paul, Niki.
MAD believes in not just educating the children, but, also developing them in all relevant areas so that they will fare well in life.
Therefore, the goal MAD has been targeting is to ensure that our kids have a better future, a better say in tomorrow’s world. MAD
has come up with the idea of making placements as another core activity.
The placements activities started off with a V.Y.B camp held for the kids from Valsalya Bhavan, YMCA and Bal Bhavan. The place-
A newbie experience!!
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.
Sunday afternoons are no longer about trying to forget the Monday blues
As a part of the placements project a field trip wasin
flashing organized for the kids to visit C-SiS
the background..its about(Centre for Science
having theinbest
Society),
timeCUSAT. Theyweek
of the were at
enlightened on topics like resonance, pixels and the formation of images in digital cameras/TV etc. and witnessed some of the wonders
HG. Accomplishment is not accompanied by fretting, being poker faced
o f s c i e n c e i n f r o n t o f t h e i r e y e s .
In Physics lab, the kids were taught toand stop being
use thermometers andyoung and
stop clocks. Theycarefree.
also learnedMaddies have
to find out the time taught
period of ame all
simple that
pen-
dulum. There was a PHYSICS PAVILLION which had a marvelous set-up named the “Circus Of Energy” to explain transformation of en- a
and more. Not all kids are what I was at 10(read grumpy, bored and
totalthepain!
ergy. It also had telescopes through which My kids
kids viewed distantat HG are
buildings. Thethe mostin amazing
kids were awe watchingwomen I’ve
the fountain testmet!
and popKids,
test of hydrogen in Chemistry lab. Theywith their uninhibited
performed enthusiasm
litmus test and displacement make
reactions; you
burnt believeribbon,
magnesium that etc.Biology
you can lab start
had formalin-protected specimens and life from scratch. Lil Beula scrunching up her face to spell eleven just for
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
a very good fromthem the
youusemakes
of pulleys,
youperiscopes
feel the anddreary
a hydro-electric
interviewgenerator
waswhich
worthlit col-
every
orful LEDs. In Computer lab they opened websites and familiarized with the working of Google earth. The kids went to a library which
moment! MAD brings so much…..hopes dreams love change pride but most
showcased a huge collection books. Maths lab was emporium of wooden models of varied geometric shapes with which they proved
of all… it gives you the opportunity of making yourself and others truly
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
happy
Herbal garden had a variety of medicinal through plants
and ornamental endeavors like
on display. Theirthis. My and
aesthetic Little Women
medicinal valueshave changed
were explained. Thenot
just mywith
experience was informative blended perfectly Sundays
fun. but my life as I knew it’ J. - Aditi

On the 24th of July, 40 volunteers around

EZ Vidya Training, Chennai South India geared up for one of the
most memorable MAD meetings ever, the
Mentor Training at Chennai. A cheerful
Jaishree Ma’am greeted us, welcoming us
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
P.S. that was one of the very contagious
song and dance sequences at Chennai.
I’m afraid it is worse than swine flu and
has already claimed most of the MAD
centers - Sharon

3
 Next time
your at
OBERON…
Check out the
Madge!!!
MAD embarks on it’s second year of acquainting
our kids with the computers!! This year we
wade into deeper waters with hardware, navi-
gation, paint, MS Word, MS Excel and Power
Point forming the core of our curriculum. Our
110 computer students at 5 centers also utilize
their PCs to build their English skills with the
help of a variety of softwares. We look forward
to acquiring the necessary infrastructure to kick
start this project in 6 more centers by the end of
this year!!

Friends of MAD
FoM is an initiative by MAD to create a network of donors who are
willing to guide and support us. To expand our network, FoM seeks
corporate to provide us with kind access to their employees. We look
forward to the management’s permission to conduct “peaceful” “Non-
disruptive” campaigns within their premises and infrastructural facili-
ties. The campaigns use tools like posters, mailers, videos, t-shirts,
MAD teaser’s etc: Thos who sign up the FoM’s are required to fill up
the Forms authorizing the EFT. The transfers happen automatically
on a monthly basis, once authorization is done and
the donor becomes a Friend Of Mad!!!! MAD invites all to post their comments/
The Madges are on the look out for suggestions views on the various volunteer
all those people who would like to activities, events and announcements that
make a difference and would put up
happen on the recently
one of us on your blogs!
launched mad forum!!!!
To download the Madges
http://makeadiff.in/
Your connectivity with people forum
who want to make a difference
will help us spread the
word.

A new endeavor of M A D with the kids of the respective

to start libraries has seen the light of centers and pertain to the
day at two of our centers: Palluruthy and level, interests etc of those
St.Mary’s, thanks to our sponsors DP World kids. We look forward to
and Mrs. Prema Roy. This is a project that ,donor. The books are bringing more centers under
we work on every time we find a suitable- this plan.
bought by vol- .
unteers who
With Best Compliments are familiar 4
Bindia, Niki, Saju, Xavi, Teza, Karthik
 ts M AD’s
i n’ even raining nd he lives
Upc om dT n et ac
t Bou oon to gr or a
Greetings to donors, volunteers, well-wishers and alumni. MAD
Cochin has decided to make a conscious effort to keep all stake- O u
The nt ar
es
e t set
f
holders better informed of our activities. The first step towards this
a l e o g
will be through this newsletter. We will be sending you updates on a got t
a d d ies. S k n ock at
lm ta !!
regular basis. of al ” s torm im e soon
-fu n ny t
“wild o r s t eps a
MAD has really grown in the last one year. The targets we set for do
ourselves at the start of the year were very different from what we your
were working on at the end of the year. MAD has grown from 4 MAD ALUMNI
cities in 2008 to 11 cities. That’s a 175 percent growth, almost 3
times what we were at this time last year! It’s time for some good news for all the
maddies who quit volunteering and feels
Our greatest regret is that we did not keep our alumni and donors the MAD emptiness in their lives. Alas!
updated on our activities. The main reason MAD was able to grow The MAD alumni is here. Help us reach
so large so fast was that every volunteer was involved beyond what you :) Register here.
we (volunteers) had initially intended, Owing to a high level of own-
ership and responsibility.

MAD ‘n’ ME
National projects for the year include a formal curriculum to teach DIA!
English as a second language to children, based on the Cambridge MAD get’s
University syllabus. This will come with detailed instructions to in- happening a
crease the average teaching effectiveness. Also a cascading loud!! To ch nd
eck out artic
teacher training system through mentors and an online MAD appli- of MAD tha les
cation to bring all our stakeholders under one roof: including chil- t have appea
dren, alumni, donors and well-wishers. in the newsp red
apers of late
the media , visit
City level projects include a robust Placement project to ensure that page
on completing our course, the children are ready to take off towards
a successful future. This will involve a structured placement plan
covering career awareness, camps, talent identification platforms
and field visits. The computer project and library project have also The people to blame when things go wrong!
been formalized and will be taken up for every centre.

The Friends of MAD program has been formally launched nationally Sanjana Kuruvilla (President)
and once we meet our targets there, we will be able to meet most of Shahnaz Thahir (VP—Human Resource)
our projects internally. Jithin, our National President, went to Boston
in connection with the Ashoka Youth Social Entrepreneur Award Jake Tomy (VP—Fundraising)
that we won last year. We have been able to reach out to some
major funding organizations. We are in the process of applying for Gautam Thomas (VP—Training)
our FCRA registration for this purpose. Saju Varghese (VP-Computers)
National Conference: We grew very fast last year. From 4 to 11 Hannah Masood (VP—Finance)
cities was a leap. We felt the need to orient the new city teams on Nikhila Ramesh (VP—Placements)
the MAD spirit and give them an understanding of our systems and
processes. Also to get their third party inputs before becoming a Karthik Madhavan (VP—Public Relations)
part of the system It was an amazing experience, creating bonds
between cities and thereby enabling many intercity projects.

As MAD grows, we feel the need to have a strong administration in

place. MAD National now has an employee: the National Coordina-
tor, who is responsible for administration and city co-ordination.. We
will soon be employing a national accountant to ensure statutory
and accounting compliance.

We have a lot of activities planned this year, especially with the

Placement project being formalized and the FOM program be taken
up at the city level. We look forward to support from all MAD stake- Applaud, or we’ll malign you !!!
holders. We look forward to you feedback and suggestions on the Ashish Asopa, Harsha JayaKrishnan, Teza Jose,
journey towards our common goal!
Hannah Masood, Karthik MADhavan 5