Project Pride

Improvements to Urur Olcott Kuppam School

Asha Chennai Proposal for 2003-2004

2^nd Sept 2003 

This proposal covers the academic year June 2003 to May 2004 even though this is being written in September. The amounts required etc. relate to this time period. We have identified items that have already been covered. Some of the expenses already incurred this year were covered by support from Asha Singapore and the employees of Cairn Energy. We have identified these. Further at this point we are expecting significant support for the project from Cairn Energy. The items for support from Cairn Energy have been separately identified in this proposal as well. 

Background:

Urur Kuppam is one of 4 villages located in South Chennai along the coastline close to each other. About 550 children reside in these 4 villages. Urur kuppam has a Balwadi and a middle school. Children below age 5 go to the Balwadi in these villages. Urur Olcott Kuppam School serves the needs of children attending classes 1^st to 8^th. The school is a government aided school. Salary for 5 teachers including that for the head-mistress and the noon-meal scheme is paid for by the government.
 
The school was inaugurated in 1939 by none other than Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi ! The noon meal scheme was inaugurated by none other than Kamaraj . But when Asha undertook the project in 2000 the school was in shambles severely under-staffed, unhygenic surroundings, cramped conditions for kids to study in ...

Over the last three years Asha has significantly improved the education provided at the school. In particular Asha has done the following:

• Fixed leaks in the roof of the old building.
• Constructed a new compound wall for the school keep away unwanted intruders as well as ensure that the children do not run out during the day.
• Constructed three classrooms on top of three classrooms built by Thursday Charities club. This allowed the school to expand upto the 8th standard. Further one of the rooms is to be used as an Audio-Visual room for Technology Aided learning.
• Provided the SchoolNet K10 program for the school.
• Provided school uniforms and notebooks for all the children for the academic year 2003-2004.
• Provided phone and gas connection to the school. 

In addition Asha is supporting the following ongoing expenses for the Urur Olcott School:

• Enhancements to the midday meal to ensure a nutritious meal that all children would enjoy eating.
• Support for three additional teachers for 6th, 7th and 8th standards.
• One beautifier and one assistant for the head-mistress, so that the classes are looked after when she goes out on school work and also help her with routine work of salaries and expenses.

Further during this time Thursday Charities club has build two more classrooms. Inner wheel club and the Lions club are in the process of building 4 more classrooms for the school. All these things together have significantly improved the quality of infrastructure available at the school. The old badly roofed building will be completely removed giving significantly more space for the children’s outdoor activities.

Project Goals for 2003-2004:

As mentioned earlier the broad infrastructure necessities for support a quality school for children upto 8^th Standard is either already available or is in the process of being made available. Our work now lies in improving the existing facilities and in providing the aids necessary to make productive use of the infrastructure available. We also recognize that this cannot be achieved without continuing the ongoing assistance that we have been providing for the last year.

One time improvements:

• Kitchen Improvements – Kitchen requires to be repainted, the roof fixed etc.
• Teaching Aids for the classes – Includes drawing material, clocks, toys (for younger classes), maps, geometry boxes, tape recorder etc.
• Public Address System and a bell – Will provide the head mistress ability to address the children.
• There are builtin cupboards in each class. There use is currently limited because of the fact that they do not have a door especially in the context that we plan to provide materials to these classes. Therefore we should provide doors to these cupboards.
• Storage space for head mistress to store records etc. This would remove the clutter and make the head mistress’ office more productive.

Ongoing Assistance:

• Uniforms and notebooks for the school children. This was done for the first time by Asha, this academic year. We hope to continue this on an ongoing basis from this year forwards.
• Salaries for three teachers (in addition to the five provided by the government), an office assitant (for the head mistress), a beautifier who maintains the school premises and an Asha intern who is permanently working for the needs of this project.
• Nutritional supplements to the noon-meal scheme provided by the government.
• Routine maintenance of the school infrastructure. This is somewhat unpredictable. This ranges from electrical repairs to providing a new borewell for water etc.
• Contents for Technology Aided Learning. Till now we have been using the Schoolnet contents. Asha is also in the process of developing its own contents as part of the ECTAL project. We hope to replace the Schoolnet contents with contents from the ECTAL project as soon as possible. However it would be useful to continue the Schoolnet services for the current year for the Urur Olcott School.

Project Cost Estimates for Year June 2003 to May 2004

 Support Requested from Cairn Energy 

One Time Expenses                      Rs    70,000

TAL Contents                               Rs    70,000

Wages and Salaries                       Rs    50,000

Nutritional Supplements                 Rs    10,000

 Total Project Funding Requested    Rs 2 Lakhs

 We hope for continued participation (monetary and non-monetary) from Cairn Energy and its employees in the development of this project. This would be beneficial for the children and the community at large.

 Continuing Vision for the Project

 The Urur Olcott Kuppam School project is part of the broader Project Pride which envisions Urur Kuppam and the Besant Nagar area to become the pride of Chennai and project itself becomes the pride of Asha. As part of this project Asha is participating in several other initiatives,

• Making improvements to the Urur Kuppam Balwadi with active cooperation from the Urur Kuppam villagers as well as the concerned government agencies.
• Working with the Police Department to create a youth club / library next to the Urur Kuppam Balwadi.
• Project Bridge at Olcott Memorial School hopes to bridge the digital divide between the haves and the have-nots in a day where computer literacy is essential for any well-paying job.
• Some volunteers are participating in an ongoing effort by Chennai Citizen’s Forum to improve the quality of education at all the corporation schools in Chennai. This includes Zone 10 under which the Urur Kuppam and Besant Nagar areas fall.

 Specifically for the Urur Olcott School, here are some our still evolving plans for the future.

 Expansion vs. Quality The school has been expanded gradually to include upto the 8^th standard. We do not intend to expand the school beyond this. By this year the schools available infrastructure will be fairly adequate for a good middle school. We plan to concentrate on education quality rather than expansion from this point forwards.

 Government Support This year the school would receive the recognition from the Government Education Department upto the 8^th standard. Three years down the road this would allow us to request the government to recognize additional teachers of the school. It would also enable us to request the government to bring more students into the noon-meal scheme.

 Community Participation In the longer time frame for the work done by Asha to become self-sustaining, we need to bring in more community participation in the school. Community includes the PTA as well as individuals and organizations in this area. This is already happening to some extent. Several of the recent infrastructure improvements to the school were provided by local community organizations. However we need to make them more actively involved and also bring a greater sense of ownership and responsibility to the Parents Teachers Assoc. Ideally Asha would like to see the school not depending on Asha for its effective running.

 Mentoring Passing Students Currently Asha has not done much in terms of monitoring the future of the kids who pass out of the school from the 8^th standard. As Asha Chennai is already doing for the Asha-Scholarships project, we will need to provide active counseling for higher age children to guide them towards a fulfilling future.

 The school was inaugurated by Mahatma Gandhi in 1939. With the efforts of the father of our nation we won our fight for independence from imperialism in 1947. However our fight for independence against ignorance, poverty and apathy continues. Making a model school of Urur Olcott School would be our corner stone in the launch of our next struggle for independence.