Deepam Half-yearly Newsletter

(Jan-Jun’14)

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ContentsHalf-yearly update (Jan-Jun’14)...................................................................................................................3

Events..........................................................................................................................................................3

Annual Day Celebrations.........................................................................................................................3

WM Field trip...........................................................................................................................................5

Republic Day Celebrations @ WM Center...............................................................................................6

Sports day @ Olcott Center.....................................................................................................................6

Republic day @ VRS Center.....................................................................................................................8

STARS Program celebration @ VRS Center..............................................................................................8

Deepam Outstanding Volunteer Award.................................................................................................10

Deepam Name Board @ WM Center........................................................................................................11

Deepam donates funds to SVN School......................................................................................................12

For any queries or clarifications, please reach out to janavi@deepam.in

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Half-yearly update (Jan-Jun’14)By Janavi Shyam

The first half of the year 2014 was certainly one for the diaries. The six months saw Deepam concluding yet another academic year and beginning the new one with great aplomb. The year that went by was witness to many events as one more batch of young kids got enriched with English and Computer skills.

The year ended on a high with the sixth annual day at BVM School Auditorium. The event was a grand success with all the centers participating with great enthusiasm. With growing popularity, the event is an occasion that brings together kids and volunteers from all the Centers. Cultural programs were studded with roaring performances by Deepam kids. A couple of our senior volunteers were also honoured with “Deepam Outstanding Volunteer of the Year” award.

The year also saw centers take their kids on education and fun-filled field trips. Kids celebrated key days such as the Republic day with fervent enthusiasm.

The new academic year saw the 5 centers of Deepam being appointed with new heads. The old center heads had done an exemplary job of building the Deepam vision with their respective volunteers and kids. The new heads have begun the year in right earnest.

Deepam is all set to open its latest center in Coimbatore. This will be a landmark achievement, being the first Center to be located outside Chennai. More on this will follow in the next edition of our Newsletter.

Events

Annual Day CelebrationsBy Janavi Shyam

Deepam’s sixth annual day was held on 16th March @ BVM School Auditorium in Adyar. The event started at around 9am with all students being ferried from their respective schools to the event venue. Volunteers were present to welcome the kids and the teachers who accompanied them.

The program as always began with a prayer sung by students. Mr.Balaji Sampath, Founder, Aid-India, was the Chief Guest for the function and he made a passionate speech that kick started the proceedings. Karthikeyan, co-founder of Deepam made a presentation to showcase Deepam’s achievements over the years.

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This was followed by real fun! Children from all centers took to the stage, and one after another, the performances kept bettering the earlier. It was indeed a treat to watch kids perform to some of the popular dance numbers and other theme based programs.

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WM Field tripBy V Praveen

12 kids from SVN School were taken on an excursion to Periyar Science and Technology Center on 25th Jan, 2014. Starting quietly from the school, the kids amid their school teachers were on their best behavior.

Our first stop - the science center. Different dolls, hobby electronics, oceans and marine species all came to life in front of the children. Very inquisitive, we had thousands of questions flying from all directions - time and our knowledge were the only limitations. The optical illusion filled mirror room was a lot of fun both for kids and volunteers alike.

We had the privilege of visiting the ISRO space center even before it has been open to the public. Needless to say, it is the best part of the center. Modern and well built it was full of information on space, satellites and shuttles -- well laid out on illuminated information panels and reduced-to-scale models of rockets and satellites. Our trip ended with the best part all kids loved -- the 3D show. Some were scared, others thrilled, a couple making the most noise in the theatre.

25th Jan 2014 will probably be a red letter day for the 5th std kids, but let's not forget the kids at the center. They would have had just as much fun, if not more with a number of volunteers rushing in to spend time with them. All this would have only been a dream if not for the teachers of SVN school.

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Republic Day Celebrations @ WM CenterBy V Praveen

'All great things come in small packages' - an apt adage to summarize our Republic Day Celebrations at West Mambalam center. For the kids, the small packages refer to the cream biscuits they get at the end of the day and for us volunteers, it is the little creations that the children so vividly bring out.

Having had a fun-filled-last-week, we were all hesitant to go with the celebrations at first, as it wastes another precious day in teaching. But a compromise was reached in having our curriculum session followed by our Republic Day celebrations cramped into the last hour.

Anand brought in wonderful short clips on Republic Day, which the kids thoroughly enjoyed. Making best use of an ISB-given opportunity we sought to identify the best in drawing talents, something we could work with later. In this spirit, a simple Greeting Card drawing contest seemed appropriate. Meticulously prepared greeting card sheets and sharpened pencils, our contest got off quickly.

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Sports day @ Olcott CenterBy Sukumaran

It was an amazing Sports day celebration at Olcott. We were very happy in conducting the 2nd year sports event for Republic day celebration at our center. On a bright Saturday after noon, 26 boys and 12 girls participated in the events.

Events conducted included Kabadi, Cricket & Frizbee for boys and Kabadi, Kho Kho and Throw ball for girls. Two teams were formed in each gender as 13+6 and each team was appointed with a Coach

Girls team named 'Gusty Girls' washed out the opponent and won the overall championship. Kudos to the Coach - Arun Nehru!! Boys Team named 'Face-to-Face' won the Championship by 2-1 Victory and the Coach is Ayyappan. Kudos!!

The credit should go to our kind volunteers especially Kannan Sir, Gopal, Sathis, Arun Nehru, Abirami, Jai, Vivakar & Ayyappan. Also, it was great on the part of the school management to approve conducting the games

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Republic day @ VRS CenterBy Janavi Shyam

VRS center celebrated our Republic day by holding an arts and craft work contest for their kids. The event was anchored by a noble bunch of guest volunteers from the alumnus of ISB.

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STARS Program celebration @ VRS CenterBy Anuradha Murali

As is customary every year, Deepam VRS center in Alwarpet ended the Academic year 2013-14 by giving away 'scholarships' to six students from class 5, in recognition of their potential, their involvement and consistent performance in Deepam classes over the year.

On Saturday, 12th April, the six 'star' kids were each given a certificate and scholarship of Rs. 3000 in a simple event anchored by the school Principal, and witnessed by their parents, other children and the center volunteers. Thava Kumaran, Vignesh, Sridhar, Kavya, Preethi, Jayashree were recipients of this year’s scholarship.

The proud parents, touched by the gesture, expressed their deep gratitude to Deepam volunteers for the weekend classes, and acknowledged the positive impact it had on their kids. These students will be moving on to other neighborhood schools from class 6 onwards. We know that this recognition from Deepam, and our words of encouragement, will remain with them through their years in high school, and motivate them to succeed.

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Deepam Outstanding Volunteer AwardBy Abhishek & R.Rajagopalan

Deepam Outstanding Volunteer 2014: Deepam’s Outstanding Volunteer Award is given to volunteers whose performance in the year has made a difference, made people take notice and follow their examples.

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Rohit Narasimhan

Ever since he’s been introduced to Deepam, Rohit has been an extremely committed volunteer at VRS center. True to his nature, Rohit usually avoids the limelight, but is easily amongst the most reliable volunteers. He is a regular at VRS Centre, actively teaching children for the past 2 years.

For all kinds of events / outings / activities etc, Rohit's leading participation can be taken for granted. He is invariably unfazed about any responsibility he is given or the tasks he takes up. His involvement with the kids and volunteers is extremely cordial.

In addition to his regular contribution as a teaching volunteer at VRS centre, Rohit has gone out of the way to ensure the STARS program at VRS centre gets a yearly funding. He also took a big initiative in helping Deepam pitch and win the funding from World Bank in 2013.

From the most routine tasks such as putting the laptops for charge every week to pitching for complex funding projects, Rohit's dedication has been outstanding. An award well deserved and we look forward to him doing many more interesting work!

Praveen Venkatachari

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Praveen is a fantastic example of someone who is highly passionate about education & teaching.

As a volunteer, he laid the foundations of a good computer program at Deepam . He identified books for teaching computer basics, which was used by all Deepam children this year. He made 'Computer class' at WM center a reality by dedicating 30 minutes exclusively for teaching computers to 5th standard children. He constantly thinks of ways to reach English and Computers to children and is a major contributor to curriculum on Deepam Dropbox with valuable information / files. He made a ton of other contributions, such as devising a common Assessment Test sheet for all Centers, building the new website for Deepam, designing a better volunteer on-boarding forms and many more.

As a leader, he listens to his team and is open to suggestions. He strives to make it easy for volunteers to execute ideas. Has a great sense of responsibility, adapts to changing situations, and willingly takes on any role as situation demands. He has also maintained a good rapport with WM school Principal to ensure weekly Deepam classes go on smoothly.

As an individual, he is someone high in integrity. He is always on time and in a totally volunteer setting, has a 100% attendance at Deepam classes in West Mambalam.

Deepam Name Board @ WM CenterBy R Rajagopalan

Not any more for only the elite, the volunteers, members, associates, donors, visitors to stalls or people visiting our website. Now, the man-on-the-road -- the parents, the vendors, the boys, the girls, men & women, people who visit the ration shop, the neighbors, everyone -- can stop by, look up in curiosity attracted by the colorful new addition to the Thambiah Road landscape and know about Deepam, what it does and where to get more details on it.

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Yes! A long-felt desire, a concept-come-true, the DEEPAM NAMEBOARD, complete with logo and all, has been put up at West Mambalam Center. From idea to erection, the 'project' involved many minds, hands, fingers, legs, ears -- but as a body Deepam and WM had worked on it and have made it happen.

Deepam donates funds to SVN SchoolBy V Praveen

Anand, through incessant effort, obtained Rs. 10000 for SVN school from Sneham (Infosys CSR wing) towards purchase of school uniform for the children.

On top of the 10K, an additional 5k amount was added from Deepam funds to bring the grand total to Rs.15000. A cheque for the same was handed over to the HM of the school on June 14.

The HM conveyed her heartfelt thanks to Anand and Deepam for making this possible.

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

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