Annual Report on Activities June 2001 -
May 2002.
Till the end of this year Nalamdana has
been supporting 34 students.
We give here a detailed account of all
the activities, meetings, achievements and community service that form a part
of our program.
I. Interactive programs:
* Interaction
with volunteers- Japanese Origami and Theatre activity:
On September 1 students came to our
office to interact with the Earthwatch supported Maternal and Child Health
project volunteers. This provided an opportunity for the students to know more
about the Earthwatch project and for the volunteers to meet the recipients of
our Scholarship Programme. The two volunteers were Ms. Uka Uemeru and Mr.
Justin Tyler. Students enjoyed learning traditional Japanese origami from Uka,
an Earthwatch volunteer and some theatre exercises from Justin Tyler who was on
a fellowship to study street theatre in different parts of the world.
We also discussed the spacing of vacation
for every student in order to co-ordinate programs for all of them. Topics for
future workshops were also discussed.
Since all schools had quarterly
examination scheduled through the month of September, and the students did not
have a mutually convenient date, workshops and interactive programmes have been
scheduled for the month of October.
* Students
meeting:
On 2nd October we organised a
students meeting and dates for First Aid workshop, parents meeting and students
educational tour were finalized. We also requested the students to volunteer at
an internationally acclaimed theatre performance by one Ms. Sarah Jones from
USA in November. This performance depicted the ways in which discriminatory
laws in different countries all around the globe affect women individually. One
student, Ramaswamy, was able to assist in preparing for this show on 3 days.
* First
Aid Workshop:
On the 6th and 13th
October, Mr. Ramadoss, Lecturer of first Aid, St. John’s Ambulance Association
was invited to conduct two workshops on the importance of first aid to our
students. He first gave a brief outline
of the human body so that students know some of the basic information. He then
explained the concept of First Aid and the basic principles of first aid. He
followed this with actual demonstrations that need to be adopted during emergency
situations using easily available materials. Some of the students volunteered
for these demonstrations. His presentation included lectures as well as
demonstrations.
* Parent’s
Meeting:
On the 20th of October we had
a meeting with the parents to get feedback about the programs organized so far.
More importantly the logistics of the trip to Pondicherry was discussed. Two
parents were asked to volunteer to accompany the students along with our office
staff.
* Students
Picnic- overnight trip to Pondicherry:
On the 27 & 28 of October, the
students went on an overnight trip to Pondicherry and had an opportunity to see
the handmade paper factory, incense factory, the Ashram, and Pondicherry
museum. This was followed by a lovely lunch after which the children went on a
boat ride at the boathouse. The trip was successfully organized with the
support of local NGO friends who helped by providing us with a guide. Four of
Nalamdana staff members went on the trip and arrangements for stay were made at
the Pondicherry Youth Hostel.
* English
Classes:
During the month of December, the
children get Dashera vacation of about a week to 10 days. We therefore arranged
for English Classes to be taken by one Ms. Sandhya Sunder between 26th
December- 28th December 2001.
Ms. Sandhya Sunder is a Master’s Degree
Holder in Linguistics. She wanted the session to be a 5-day session during
which the students will be able to learn something and prepare something with
what they have learnt but we were able to have only a 4-day session. The
workshop was attended by a total of 15 students with a few who could be
considered as floating population. Not many children had the entire week as
vacation as this vacation is only optional to some schools.
Preparation for summer activities 2002
In the month of March, we started planning for the summer activities. Broad framework of the different topics that may be of interest to the children were worked out and resource persons for each of these topics were identified. A meeting for the 15th of April was scheduled to discuss the schedule with the children and also to discuss other related issue.
The agenda for this meeting was as
follows:
·
Assess the number of students who would
be interested in English classes during this summer.
·
Confirm the dates for English classes and
other workshops planned for the summer such as carpentry, horticulture, screen
printing, block printing, animation, scripting and acting, pottery and personality
development.
·
Discuss about student newsletter. Appoint
new members for the editorial board.
·
Talk about the students award- what is
service? Possibilities of service in their community.
·
Discuss the idea of a student’s alumni
association. Students passing out this year may start the first batch.
·
Design a feed back form for every
workshop with help from the students.
·
Inquire about computer classes nearby
their place of residence.
·
Ask the students who will be entering
college, their future plans and refer them to other scholarship providers.
Proceedings of meeting on 15th
April:
A total of 19 students attended the
meeting out of which 11- 12 of them were interested and available.
Those students who had completed their 9th
and 11th exams will not be able to attend, as they have to go for
coaching classes in their schools even during the holidays. A few students will
be going out of town during the last week and first 15 days of April and May,
therefore they will not be able attend the English classes.
Students showed interest in the various
workshops lined-up for the summer. The students wanted to work on another radio
drama, watch a Nalamdana street play performance, attend another one-day first
aid session and learn photography.
We spoke to the students about community
service. After speaking to them about the different types of service we
realized that the students have already been doing service in some form. We
found this very surprising and we encouraged them to keep us informed about any
of their extracurricular activities. Each student was asked to write in a piece
of paper, the various activities that they have participated in and around
their community/school. The students have also been told to continue the work
that they have been doing and for those who have not done any work, they could
identify new tasks to do this summer. For those who are not able to identify
any tasks on their own, they have been told to take the help of Nalamdana staff
and participate in any of our ongoing projects. By June 10, 2002, all the
students have been asked to inform the office about the activities that they
have done so that we may consider it for the award.
In connection to this topic, the students
wanted an ID card for themselves. The information that students felt should be
in the card was their names, address-home and Nalamdana’s with phone numbers,
Blood group and a stamp size photo of themselves.
The next on the agenda was the student newsletter. All the students agreed that the summer issue of the newsletter has to be prepared. A few students volunteered to take up the responsibility of preparing the summer issue. They are: Satish, Manoj Kumar, Vinod Kumar, Sivakumar, Indira and Devi. Ramaswamy and Noordeen would oversee and provide guidance at every step, as they were involved in preparing the previous issue.
We also discussed the idea of a student’s alumnus. The concept of an alumnus and what its activities would be were explained to them. They were also told that the initiative to form such an association was up to the students. The students asked question such as how often the association would have to meet and where would they meet etc. So they were told that members of the alumnus would have to decide on these issues. Nalamdana will just guide them if they would like to take up any issue or activity.
A total of 5 students will be completing their scholarship term with Nalamdana as they have completed their 12th grade this year. Out of this 5 one student has completed 4 yrs of Bachelors in Dental surgery and is now working as an intern. Amongst the remaining four 2 have applied for professional courses i.e. engineering and medicine, one has applied for teachers training as well as Bachelors in Commerce at local colleges and one more student has decided to study through correspondence (distance education).
Over the past few years we have observed
that the children get exposure to most of the mainstream professions and
careers. There are so many other professions that are skill based and lucrative
too that the children need to know about so that at a future date they may be
willing to take up that skill provided they find it interesting.
So the activities for this summer were
planned in such a way that the students were able to learn something new and
also reinforce what they had learnt in the past.
Activities planned for this summer were:
*
Environment and the field of Horticulture
(April 27 & May 11)
*
Carpentry (April 28, 29, 30, May 2,3)
*
Spoken English (May 2- May18.)
*
Pottery (May 6-8)
*
Personality development (May 9)
*
Introduction to Screen-printing. (May 13)
*
Visit to the Integral Coach Factory. (May
14)
*
Invited a Nalamdana Alumni student to
talk to the students who are finishing their school. (May 8)
*
Theatre activity: conceptualising a
story, writing screenplay, dialogue and acting. (May 14 – May 18)
Though there were more activities
planned, some of them could not be held, as resource persons were unavailable
on the said dates. The day was scheduled in such a way that the mornings were
spent on English classes and the afternoons for other physical activity. Even
though the heat was unbearable, this seemed to be the best option. There were
no activities planned for Sundays.
*
Spoken English:
During this summer we invited Ms. Subhasree and Ms. Kaveri Bharath to conduct
the classes. Ms. Subhasree is a trained teacher with nearly 20 years experience
in teaching the language to school children and now teaches corporate
executives, coaches children for the Cambridge Young Learners English program
and is an instructor at IMS-a certified coaching centre for MBA graduates. Ms.
Kaveri Bharath, a trained potter, has previously conducted few interactive
sessions with the children.
Activities for
a 15-day period were planned and these two resource persons were to handle the
entire session. A certain amount of emphasis was given to the grammar aspect
and for the most part the facilitators encouraged speaking and gave the
children exercises that were conversation intensive.
The exercises
were simple and catered to different levels. Students also asked a lot of
doubts and those who were interested asked for extra exercises.
At the end of
the class, in order to assess the learning, the students were given a simple test
paper covering all the aspects that were covered during the course of 15 days.
Papers were set for two different levels so that every child was able to answer
to the level that he/she knew. The overall feedback was a positive one. We did
have a few students who did not enjoy the class as they found the teaching
difficult and also because it was for the first time that they were learning
the details of the language so intensively.
What needs to
be done further in this aspect is to schedule classes for a longer period and
give more personalised teaching to the beginners.
See facilitators report for more details.
* Environment
and Horticulture:
In the current day scenario we felt that it was necessary for every child, adolescent and adult to know about the environment and what is happening to it. Instead of just calling an environmentalist to talk to the students we brought in a horticulturist who introduced the students to a not- so well known profession.
Ms. Swamithayammal is a horticulturist trained at the Agriculture College in Coimbatore, Tamilnadu and is a freelance landscape designer. In her spare time she works with children and shows them the environment friendly way of life and also conducts summer camps at a small level.
Ms.
Swamithayammal took two sessions for the children. The first one dealt with the
present situation of our environment and why we need to protect it. Few games
were used to break the ice with the children. She also showed the children a
different ways of cutting vegetables from the usual way that we all are used
to, so as to reveal shapes such as a star inside an apple!
Some material on the latest happenings in the field of agriculture, horticulture and environment were shared with the children. The art of ikebana and moribana were demonstrated to the children and the meaning behind this art from was also explained.
As an experiment the children planted a root vegetable and grafted a small branch of a hibiscus tree. They also dug a pit and buried a few pieces of brown paper, a piece of plastic, a banana peel and a piece of apple in order to see which ones were bio- degradable. For this experiment the children were divided into 3 different groups. The progress would be noted in the following class. It was also the duty of one child from every group to make sure that the plants were watered everyday and were taken care of.
The resource person also briefed the students about the subject of horticulture, what it involves, where can one study the course and the scope for such a subject.
In the following week, the resource person prepared a slide show for the children. The slides comprised of pictures of commonly sighted plants, insects and worms that help in growth (earthworm, honey bee, Butterfly, etc). There were also pictures of barren lands being converted into a beautiful landscape, cartoon strips that were pro-environment and examples of rainwater harvesting. After the slide show the children performed a puppet show about the Dodo bird and the Clavaria tree, both indigenous to the island of Mauritius, which are now extinct. Towards the end the students and the resource persons examined all the experiments.
Following the workshop, about 10 students went to the resource person’s house where they learnt to make paper carry bags, folders and to recycle envelopes. The children found it very useful and were excited to see that they could produce something with what is generally considered a waste material.
See
facilitators report for more details.
* Carpentry:
Mr. Krishnan, the resource person, planned simple exercises for the students as some of them may find it very difficult to handle the tools and other materials for the first time. The resource person demonstrated the various techniques and told the children to try. Initially they found it difficult as many of them were doing it for the first time and also because it involved exerting a lot of physical pressure and concentration. Apart from the resource person, there were two more of his apprentice who came along with him to ensure that the children did not hurt themselves while learning and also to give them more personalised attention. Almost all of the students were interested and tried their hand at making the grooves and ridges. Towards the end of the five days, the students had learnt to draw the measurements, cut the wood according to the measurements, place markings on the wood and cut grooves into them, place all the blocks to form a stool, cut out a top for the stool, and even out the surface and paint them.
The carpenter said that some of them children had aptitude to do much more complicated structures while a few were playful and not interested. He felt that it was a very different experience for him and invited some of the interested children to come to his workshop and intern with him during their holidays.
See
student’s report for details.
* Personality
development:
Though all activities have an element of personality development in them, certain skills and attitudes can be cultivated. With this in mind we invited Ms. Priya, a trained psychologist who works closely with children to facilitate this session. Topics that were to be covered in this session were listening and importance of listening, empathy, and qualities of a good listener; adolescence and changes that one goes through this period and how they can be handled; SWOT analysis; Self esteem and self confidence.
Role-plays and icebreakers were used to get the children comfortable with dealing with their own emotional issues.
The children really enjoyed the SWOT analysis and quite immediately opened up to the facilitator with their difficulties and happy moments. The children unanimously wanted a few more sessions on this topic.
See
facilitators report for more details. Also
see students report on classes.
* Pottery:
Ms. Kaveri Bharath conducted pottery classes for the children on three days. She showed the children the various techniques used in pottery and also showed them the furnace where the objects are fired. Each one of them was allowed to try their hand at the wheel. Due to time as well as resource constraints, the children were allowed to try only once at the wheel as there was only one wheel. However all of them were taught sculpting exercises and each one them was given some clay and were told to do hand pottery where by they could do small objects with their hands.
See
facilitators report for more details.
*
Screen-printing:
One afternoon, we took the students to a nearby screen-printing unit where they were taken through the process of preparing an output such as a visiting card, letterhead sheets, printed envelopes, etc.
First the process was explained along with a demonstration. The printer then allowed the children to participate and actually prepare a positive and frame etc. The children divided themselves into two groups to prepare the positives and later each one of them printed on a card that they could take back with them. Students have given positive feedback on this activity.
*
Factory Visit: Integral Coach
Factory
Upon asking at the meeting of 15th April, some of the children wanted to visit a factory and it also became obvious that this kind of an educational outing is not planned for in many schools. One student, Ramaswamy, came forward saying that we could go the ICF factory and that he could inquire about the procedure from an uncle who works there.
Ramaswamy was successfully able to arrange for permission and around 18 students plus 4 staff members went to the ICF factory early one morning. We went through the entire assembly line and the fittings & furnishing department. As there were no guided tours, one of the workers explained the work done by his particular unit. It was a great experience for not only the students but also for all of us who went for the visit. We all thank student Ramaswamy, who got the permission for us to visit such a high security production centre.
*
Scripting and voice culture – Radio
Play:
This was another activity that the children asked for. They wanted to do another radio play. We invited Mr. Hans Koushik, theatre person and founder of theatre group-Magic Lantern, to handle this session. The 5-day session was divided into 3 days for conceptualising and 2 days for scripting for which Mr. Kumaravel, another well-known theatre and film artist, co-founder of Magic Lantern, was invited. On the first three days the children thought of a story, chose the characters, and enacted the play. With the help of the resource person’s feedback, they modified the play and fine-tuned the story/dialogue. On the fourth day, the children narrated/enacted their stories to Mr. Kumaravel and they started writing the script with his help. By the last day they all had their scripts ready and had also enacted their play to the resource person. All the scripts have been handed over to the student’s program in-charge and on suitable dates these plays will be converted into radio dramas.
On the last day of the summer activities, all those children present filled out an evaluation form of all the classes as well as the resource persons. Many of the children had said that they enjoyed the classes and the teaching.
See
facilitators report for details.
III. Community Service by students:
(Please note that the following accounts
have been written by student and have been typed by us in English with minor
grammar corrections.)
Nalamdana continuously encourages
students to involve themselves in community service either in the areas nearby
their place of residence or in collaboration with Nalamdana. Some students had
very high ideas of community service and therefore had failed to mention their
involvement, as they did not look at it as a service to the community. While
talking to them we reinforced in their minds that any small gesture towards
helping another human being within ones own sphere and capacity is community
service. Following are some of the student’s account of the service that they
have been involved in during the past one-year.
M. Indira, 11th Grade
“I went to an orphanage and taught
lessons and helped the students in their studies for 1 week.”
“I also help a friend who is handicapped
by carrying her bag to and from school everyday.”
V. Jennifer, 12th Grade
“ I also participated in a polio prevention camp in my locality. It was organised by the government. Under the supervision of a nurse, I administered polio drops to the children.”
“ While preparing for our school Annual day celebrations, the dance teacher cancelled in the last minute. So I took up the responsibility and taught dance to about 25 students in my school.”
“ One girl in my school was unable to pay
the fees. So I spoke to the headmistress and got her a concession of Rs.1,
000/- and upon my request the headmistress also gave her a scholarship of Rs.
400!”
“I teach accounts to some of the weaker
students in my class”
“ In the Vysarpadi slum, many huts were
gutted in a fire accident. So I went around to a few houses in my locality and
collected pieces of old clothing and gave it to the people of the slum through
my school.”
“ During the summer holidays I conducted
summer classes to the children in my slum. I taught them dance, how to keep
one’s environment clean, importance of vitamins & vaccinations, how to
speak politely to parents, how to write their own names, music classes,
drama,etc. the classes were for 11 days between 20th April and 30th
May 2002. I also plan to conduct first aid classes for these children by taking
some help from Nalamdana.”
R. Sandhya, 12th Grade.
“The chemistry lab in my school was very dirty. Along with a few other students I helped to clean the equipment and arrange all the apparatus.”
R. Devi, (Just completed 12th
grade- entering college)
“ In school, I taught Business maths to a few of my classmates.” I volunteered in helping arrange all the books in my library along with a few other students”
M. Revathy, 10th Grade
“ I helped some children in my neighbourhood with their school lessons and also taught Hindi to some of them. I also gave a few tips on how to write their Hindi exams to some of them.”
“ I participated in a polio eradication program conducted at Otteri and helped in administering polio drops to children.”
“ I trained Lower kindergarten and Upper
kindergarten children in dance for their “Kiddies” annual day celebration”
Shobana.B. Navanikar, 10th
Grade
“I go twice a month to the temple and help in cleaning the premises.”
“I help out in medical camps near my
house, eg: polio eradication program.”
“I teach songs and slokas to children
aged 6-12 years.”
“Once a year I go on a rally to teach
discipline to children.”
“ During my summer vacation, I conducted
summer classes for 20 children from different schools. These classes were held
at my house between the 21st and 31st of May 2002. Seven
boys and thirteen girls attended classes on Dance, Music, Bag making with old
newspaper, Bhajans (devotional songs), talk on diseases and their symptoms. All
the children were very happy and wanted me to conduct such classes again next
summer.”
R.R.Manoj Kumar, 11th Grade
“ I prepared some notebooks by stitching the unused papers from my 10th grade notebooks and gave it to many deserving students. I donated my 10th grade textbooks to a boy working in a mechanic shop totally free of cost. I prepared a booklet, which tells how to keep oneself clean and distributed to many men and women who went by the road. I taught logarithms to a few of the weak students in my class at my home.
IV. Students Volunteer with Nalamdana
Dr. R. Selvarani, BDS.
It was a very proud moment for Nalamdana
when Ms.Selvarani, who is doing her residency in Dental Surgery, came to
volunteer at the health camp conducted in the Maternal and Child Health project
site on August 11, 2001. She has offered to volunteer in other forthcoming
health camps also. Recently Ms. Selvarani had brought to our office one of her
professor, Dr. Manikandan a leading plastic surgeon, who is providing free
treatment for children and adults who suffer from cleft lip and cleft palate.
Through Nalamdana they propose to conduct free dental camps in semi-urban as
well as rural areas and Ms. Selvarani is going to play an active role in this
project. We look forward to continuing this relationship with her and working
with her.
L.S. Noordeen, (Just completed 12th
grade- entering college)
On three occasions Noordeen volunteered
at Nalamdana and helped with office work. In the process he also learnt the way
in which an office works. On two occasions, Noordeen volunteered for two street
theatre performances on HIV/AIDS. He helped in setting up the stage and
equipment along with the Nalamdana staff members.
M. Suchitra, (Just completed 12th
grade- entering college)
Between May 6th -May 10th, Srishti School of Art Design and Technology, Bangalore, conducted a workshop titled “Communication for Change”. We selected our student Suchitra Mohan to attend this workshop as a representative of Nalamdana along with another staff member. We selected this student since limited participants were only allowed and also the fact that this workshop would need a certain level of understanding.
Please see enclosed her report on this
5-day workshop.
Suchitra also helped with the Data entry process in the Maternal and Child Health project. She also contributed significantly during the new student’s selection process by assisting during the exams and group discussions. She also helped in setting the question paper for the exam.
Sampath Kumar, 12th Grade
Sampath Kumar volunteered on the day of the group discussion during the new student selection process 2002-03.
Vinoth Kumar, 11th Grade
Vinoth Kumar volunteered his services on 2 occasions when Nalamdana was performing an HIV/AIDS play at two different sites.
Rishabaraj, 10th Grade
Rishabaraj volunteered on one occasion when Nalamdana performed a HIV/AIDS play in one of the Chennai city slums.
Ramaswamy was able to assist in preparing
for an internationally acclaimed theatre performance titled “Women Can’t Wait”
that was co-hosted by Nalamdana in Chennai. He assisted the staff in preparing
for this show on 3 days.
V. Student’s Achievements for the year
2001-2002.
M.Indira -91.4 %, K.Janaki- 81.5% and K.
Ramya – 81.2 %.
Selection
of new students for the year 2002-2003.
We advertised
in 3 local dailies - Adyar Sundae, Thiruvanmiyur times and Mylapore times
regarding the selection of new students for the year 2002-2003. Preparation for
the selection process started during the last week of May 2002.
We
received 48 applications from interested students. The process of verifying
application was also immediately undertaken. On 8th and 9th
the new students were put through the selection process of Exam and Group
discussion. Short listed candidates were asked to come in for an interview with
their parents. House visits have been completed and 9 students have been
selected out of which 7 students are in the 8th grade and 2 students
are in 9th grade.