Back to School II 

(Support for Tsunami Affected Children)
(Updated 18th March 2006)

Background

It has been more than a year since the Tsunami hit the coast of Tamilnadu. Children have suffered from this tragedy. Their schooling has also been impacted. Many children lost their school books, notebooks, uniforms etc. The schools play an important role in returning to these children a sense of normalcy. It further provides them a secure environment away from their home. Thus it is important that we get the children these materials so that they can resume their normal schooling activities.

It is with this intention that Asha Chennai provided “Back to School” support for about 2500 children last year (for the academic year 2005-06). We are continuing to receive requests for the Back to School support for the year 2006-07 as well. The regeneration of many of the affected communities is a slow and ongoing process. Therefore this help is required for the continuing education of these children.

The schools that have been identified for support by Asha, are schools where a majority of the children are affected by the Tsunami. In such cases we do not think it makes sense for us to distinguish children who are affected from those who are not. The children who are not affected are also usually from poor families and even if they have not lost their possessions, they have often lost their livelihood because of the disruption it has caused in the community (through moving to shelters, through the stop in the fishing trade, etc.). Therefore we intend to distribute these materials to all children in schools where a majority of the children are affected by the Tsunami. In a couple of cases the intended beneficiaries of the project are not children of a specific school but children from an affected village that go to different schools.

There is no plan for long term involvement with these schools. The volunteers (they are the people who have identified the needsworking in these areas plan to follow up with the children in these areas at least once a week, do In a case with a couple of schools we are looking at working with them with our longer term plans to improve government schools.



Schools Identified

Some of the schools and organizations are identified below:

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Since this list is continuing to expand, we are treating this as an open ended project. The list of schools and children actually helped as part of this project is captured elsewhere and would be posted in the webpage along with this proposal.

We are currently requesting support for an additional 500 children at the cost of Rs 1000 per child.


Support Details & Budget

For each student we intend to provide the following,

  1. Note books for children – The notebooks varies starting at 2 ruled, 1 unruled, 1 maths and 1 drawing notebooks for classes 1 and 2 to 1 unruled, 2 long composition books and 6 long unruled 200 page notebooks for classes 11 and 12. 

  2. Pencil box for all classes with pencils and pens (higher classes).

  3. Colour pencils and crayons for children upto 6th standard. Geometry boxes for 7th to 12th standard children.

  4. One lunch box per child.

  5. One school bag per child.

  6. One activity book for fun and games for coming to terms with the effects of the Tsunami

  7. Two sets of uniforms or civil clothes (esp. for college students or Balwadi children) at an average cost of Rs 250 per set for each child. Note we will initially give one uniform for the children and give the other set after we are able to cover all the children.

Total Cost per Child for the above items Rs 1000.

Total Support Required for the Project: 500 * Rs 1000 = Rs 5 Lakhs