This report is based on several conversations with Karthi and other youth who work with him.

Vasantha Mugam: Children’s camp organized by Muthukumar (he left another organization and is working with Seed narpanigal – Asha does not pay his honorarium) on the government school premises during the summer break. The camp was nine days long, and activities ranged from making things from waste material, cooking food and selling it, having an environmental day and so on. The total cost was Rs. 1500, essentially the cost of materials – the grounds were free.

Mr. Muthukumar appears to have a plan of approaching some large funding agency after three years. Approaching an established funding agency is very hard in the initial years so Asha’s help is a great benefit. Many groups want to start something, but lack the financial and moral support. Karthi has repeatedly talked about how Asha’s help has been so critical for his fledgling group.

Vaandugal Arangam: The after school study center for primary school children was started by paying 5 volunteers Rs.1000 a month. However after 3 months we are observing that that honorarium is not enough to keep people – when they get a job which pays more they naturally want to leave. So Karthi is falling back on the option of paying Rs. 500, and really treating this as a part-time position, and hiring more people since Rs. 5000 can now be spread to more youth. (incidentally this is how the original SEED started). After lots of discussions with him this seems to be a better model. The Rs. 5000 is distributed amongst about 12 youth.

Some middle school and high school students have started coming to this center, raising concerns that this would be in “competition” to the old SEED. However after more discussions I am convinced that that is not the case – there are 2000 children in Karumabalai. Clearly one center is not enough.

A number of activities have been conducted – children’s camp was organized (Vasanta Mugam, described above), a debate group has been created, going on field trips to nearby places (a short train ride, an air force display, temple festivals). Things like the train ride might seem odd to us, but it provides exposure for the children who in some cases have not left the slum at all, and in many cases have never left Madurai city. As youth who grew up in the slum Karthi and others are able to identify what activities would be relevant to children who are growing up in a similar environment.

One youth, Anbarasan wants to study MSW (Masters in Social Work) and has started to do so. While his desire to have a career in social work is to be applauded, the economics of the NGO sector is a bit perturbing. Mansoor is another youth who is an exceptional Maths teacher, but has had to take up a job with another NGO (office/clerical type work) because they pay more (Rs. 3000) than we were able to pay for monthly honorarium.

Library: Someone donated Rs. 25,000, and the group decided to use that to build an upstairs room above one of the youth’s one room home. The group gets to use the room rent-free, and the youth’s family gets a structure built on top of their house. Karthi’s idea is to have a free, open-to-all library for the entire slum (which was why this youth’s home was chosen – it is close to the slum’s entrance so everyone will know where it is). All the books they own have been placed there. They ran out of money before they could buy cupboards/shelves (yes, it was poor planning). Currently the books are sitting on boxes on the floor, but the idea of a library is taking shape, and was formally opened on Tamil New Year’s day. They also plan to have a board outside with important information like the dates of competitive exams, etc.

Puthuyugam, the children’s magazine: Karthi has long felt that there is a dearth of reading material for children. This is especially in languages other than English. Magazines such as Chandamama are generally out of their reach (too expensive), and not many Tamil magazines/newspapers carry sections like the “young people’s supplement” that The Hindu carries which has lots of puzzles, interesting tidbits of information, etc. So Karthi started a “magazine for the children by the children” where they collected original contributions from the children, and also got interesting puzzles and bits of general knowledge from other sources (which were acknowledged). This magazine was given to children for a suggested donation of Rs. 2. So far it has worked out very well – children love seeing their name in print, and there is magazine for them to read. The cost of this is around Rs. 2500 per month. This effort was applauded by The Hindu at: http://www.hindu.com/yw/2007/04/20/stories/2007042001330600.htm

Working with government schools: Improving government schools in the slum and nearby areas has been one of Karthi’s cherished desires. He got permission from the appropriate education official and the headmistress to teach students basic reading and writing (he managed to get permission after an inspector came and lost his temper at how difficult even middle school students found it to read and write).

Children’s bank: Just as with self-help groups a bank for children who come to Vaandugal Arangam (the after school study center) has been started. Initially Rs. 1 or Rs. 2 donations by the children were used for needs at the center like chalk-piece, etc. Now they have instead starting putting the money in the children’s own accounts, and at the end of the year help them figure out how to use it (for a school bag, for books, for other supplies, etc.).