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7/29/2019 Deepam Quarterly Newsletter_Q4 2012- Vol.2
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Deepam Quarterly Newsletter
(Oct-Dec12)
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ContentsQuarterly update (Oct-Dec12) ..................................................................................................................... 3
Volunteer meet ............................................................................................................................................. 4
Deepam Volunteer meetDec12 ........................................................................................................... 4
Events ............................................................................................................................................................ 4
Childrens Day celebrations ...................................................................................................................... 4
Olcott Center ......................................................................................................................................... 4
VRS Center ............................................................................................................................................ 5
WM Center ............................................................................................................................................ 6
Visit to Radio Station ................................................................................................................................. 7
KC Center .............................................................................................................................................. 7
Deepams Lastest Laptop.......................................................................................................................... 9
Infosys initiative ........................................................................................................................................ 9
Run(s) for Deepam ...................................................................................................................................... 11
New volunteer Induction program ............................................................................................................. 12
Scholarship program_Testimonial .............................................................................................................. 13
Please send your valuable feedback [email protected]
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Quarterly update (Oct-Dec12)By Janavi Shyam
New Years greetings to all readers!
Deepams 3rd
quarter updates is an account of an exciting and event filled end to 2012 which marked the
beginning of yet another center at Kodambakkam. The advent of our latest center is the result of
concerted efforts of our leadership team with Education Department, Govt. of Tamil Nadu. Ms N Latha,
Joint Director, School Education Department met with our leadership team and, impressed with
Deepams initiatives and activities, offered to extend help by earmarking 5 centers in Chennai. The Asst.
Educational Officers who subsequently visited our WM center witnessed a typical Deepam session in
progress and gave positive feedback to Ms Latha. Following this, our leadership team selectedKodambakkam as our next center where we will continue our journey of educating primary school kids
in English and computer skills.
Deepams volunteer meet that took place on a balmy afternoon at the scenic Guindy Park looked at
different suggestions from our new and old volunteers on how we can improve our ways and means of
teaching children. The members also took part in a knowledge sharing session that saw some interesting
experiences and ideas being exchanged.
The last three months of the year saw us celebrating Childrens day in an eventful manner with all
centers organizing several events ranging from painting to fancy dress competition. Some of our kids
were lucky to witness the functioning of Chennais only all-English radio station, Chennai Live 104.8FM.
In a philanthropic gesture, a young couple, Karthik and Sudha donated Deepams latest laptop. The
laptop will help us serve our students even better. Infosys CSR arm Sneham donated 50 English
dictionaries for our students. The dictionaries were distributed as required among our different centers.
The quarter also marked the closing of our UK center. This was a sad day for Deepam and all who were
closely associated with it were quite upset. However, the tough decision was taken following rounds of
discussion among the leadership team which decided that Deepam will continue in govt. run schools
only in the future.
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Volunteer meet
Deepam Volunteer meetDec12
By Janavi Shyam
Deepams quarterly volunteer meet was held in Dec12 after a long gap. About25 members were
present at the meet that was held in Guindy Parks natural surroundings. Members expressed their rich
experiences with Deepam and also exchanged ideas on how to improve our methods and practices.
Some new volunteers who had joined us recently also participated in the meet. It is planned to hold
such meets more frequently and with a packed agenda in future.
Events
Childrens Day celebrations
Olcott Center
By Janavi Shyam
Olcott center celebrated Childrens Day with much fun and frolic. The center organized a theme based
painting competition for the kids. It had a good turnout and the kids came out with interesting ideas.
Prizes were distributed to the winners.
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VRS CenterBy Anuradha Murali
After what seemed like a no show day with many things not going our way at the start, it dramatically
turned out to be a very good event with many of our kids surprising us with their well memorized few
lines delivered confidently. And the mike organized by the school made it even better. Few parents, ex-
students and us volunteers were the audience.Top of the charts was Mother Teresa (Sharanya). Her costume was perfect..and KP will be happy to
know that she blasted thru the I am Albanian, Indian etc etc Thunderous applause!Second place went to Santa Claus (Jenith) who fitted the part perfectly, and said his lines with gusto. Heactually brought a red bag filled with stuff to add credibility to his role, not to mention the rags that
were stuffed into his red pullover to give him a Santa tummy! Smiles all around!And the third place went to Bharathiyar (Akhila) who started with the fiery Tamil poem Achham illai and
ended with a couple of English lines and Vande mataram! Super! And to think that she didnt know
even a single Bharathiyar poem one week ago!!!Surprise package was Jayalalithaa (Dinisha)for a girl who is usually so reticent, she spoke bravely into
the mike, and was dressed to look the part too.
Nehruji (Poongavanam) looked so real, but her delivery though correct was a bit sing-songish. The otherNehru (Shweta) was also sing songish-ly good.
Mickey Mouse (Uma) and Snow White (Vaishali) were both good too, with full English lines, but they
narrowly missed being placed.
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Neil Armstrong (Santosh) was a surprise letdown. He is such a bright boy, but somehow on stage the
words just didnt come out. He was the only boy who came fully dressed as instructed, and spared us
some effort.
The other participants two Krishnas, two cricketers, Gandhiji, Muruga & Avvayyar, Rajinikanth,
dancers etc., were dressed up for the part, but obviously they had not put in the effort to learn their
lines.
Leeba (alumnus of VRS center), the judge for the event, was visibly happy to be at VRS again, and in her
characteristic style, she pampered the kids with lots of goodies. Janavi gave crayon boxes to all the kids.
WM Center
By R.Rajagopalan
At Deepam WM, Children's Day events started off colorfully -- all the children resplendent in their
Deepavali 'new's for this special day. The events planned for the day were no less colorful. The
volunteers having earlier reached a consensus to allow children, for a change, to do what they like to do
most, thus making it their day -- Children's Day -- the competitive games and events steered well clear
of anything related to reading, writing, speaking, spelling, grammar or pronunciation. Even the team
names chosen were from popular characters in story books the children like to relate with and draw
pictures of -- Bubbles, Bruno, Pepper and Scooby Doo.
Keeping in mind the different levels of skills and interest of the children (we have kids of III, IV and V
std), three main events were conducted today.
BINGO - This was a team event participated by 14 children, with a volunteer to help each team, involving
crossing out words as they are called out. The team that gets to cross out all the words in the given 4x4
grid was adjudged the winner.
MEMORY GAME - Again, a competitive event to encourage children to see, retain, recall and recount --
not words or sentences, not answers to questions, not vowels nor consonants, but objects. Objects were
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the ones children see and use every day, ranging from an apple to onion to mobile phone to buttons to
mickey mouse to coolers to wallet. This was an engaging event for both the children and our volunteers.
CREATIVE DRAWING - A circle, a triangle without a base (or an inverted V), a semi-circle and two parallel
lines. With the condition that these should form part of the pictures they draw, children were allowed to
let their imagination go unbridled. To help them in this, each child (this was an individual event) was
given an A4 sheet with the 4 patterns drawn on top, and a pencil, an eraser and a packet of crayons. The
concepts children came up with were outstanding, some of them stunning. It was astounding what all
children could think up to use the given patterns.
BOARD GAMES - This was a subsidiary event to keep teams of children engaged while another team was
participating in Memory Game. As is always the case, volunteers played these with a passion that
matched children's enthusiasm.
At the end of the events, all children were given one piece of cake, drinking water, one packet of 'Lays'chips and one Frooti. At the beginning, instructions to children on the events planned was being given
while at another end few volunteers were discussing plans for conducting the events smoothly.
Visit to Radio station
KC Center
By Vedavalli Rajan
Saturday, the 13th October turned out to be a special day for us in KC centre. The long overdue outing
was to take place and the volunteers- three from KC centre (while Madhu mam from WM centre
joined at the venue) - and the children - fourteen of them, seven boys and seven girls - were equally
excited. The trip was to the radio station of 104.8 FM, Chennai Live at Empee Tower, Egmore, Chennai
and we spent as much time travelling as we spent at the destination. Enroute, one of the boys suggested
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we play Spellbee and it was fun because the kids had the signboards on the way as clues to the answers.
We finally arrived at 104.8 Chennai Live FM station at 11.00 A.M and the producer Mahalakshmi came
over to take us around. She asked the kids to introduce themselves and it was such a proud moment forus volunteers to see that all of them could actually do it in English with ease. Mahalakshmi was quite
impressed with their ambitions - software engineer, police women, astronaut etc. She wanted to take
the children in 2 batches and the kids devised a way to form the batches, one girls batch and the other
boys batch.
They visited the sound-proof studio from where the live broadcast happens - at that time there was only
a prerecorded program going on and then went on to see how the playlists are made up, the other two
back-up studios where they record programs and the music scheduling section too. Mahalakshmi
showed the kids the work of the person who prepares the announcement type advertisement - and
explained how he records the vocal part first, then mixes the musical background and then schedules itto go on air as per the requirement of the advertisers. We met 2 of the RJs and a quizmaster too. The
quizmaster, Thouseef, had a question for the kids: Who won the T-20 championship recently? and
Divakar gave the right answer which was impressive.
We wound up the trip by 12.30 P.M thanking all of them at the radio station for such an educative
session but had to hang on as the van was parked elsewhere. Sathish, a volunteer from KC centre played
the 104.8 FM on his mobile and the kids were thrilled. During the waiting time, there was a lot of
assimilation of facts learnt inside the radio station and if only they get to have a topic for an essay
about a visit to an important place, these kids can actually write out of their experience!
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Deepams Latest Laptop
by Janavi Shyam
Deepams latest possession, a fine new laptop, was recently donated by a young couple, Karthik and
Sudha, who expressed their interest in contributing to the organisations cause. Though the couple is not
involved directly in our classes, the gesture came as a positive for the organization. A big round of
applause to them from the entire Deepam fraternity.
Infosys initiative
By Prasanna
Hail the benevolent philanthropist!
Sneham, the CSR wing of Infosys, is only as popular as the company itself for several of its positive
influences to the outside world through its involvement. Snehams latest drive that includes supporting
education of our children connected with Deepams objective that focuses also on education.
Infosys, through Sneham, donated 50 dictionaries to Deepam to be distributed among our center and
eventually to the children studying in them. The dictionaries were distributed equally among all centers
and were well received by the children
In identifying the children for this valuable gift, WM center had set the norm that the child receiving it
the dictionary should really appreciate its value, be able to use it or be willing to learn to use it, and
preserve it with the respect it deserves.
At our VRS center, the dictionaries were distributed to 8 fast-track students and 2 intermediate
students. The kids were first told about Infosys and how having a dictionary as a reading aid would help
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them in their academic pursuit, that may eventually lead to employment in a big company like Infosys!
They all nodded eagerly and said they knew how to use a dictionary.
At our KC center, 10 kids were identified based on track record and were distributed with dictionaries.
The kids really enjoyed the gift and we have instructed them to bring it to the class every week. The kids
were also given lunch baskets contributed by our friends from Thomson Reuters.
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Run(s) for DeepamBy Janavi Shyam
A unique event that was probably the most special of all the social happenings in the last three months
was the Run for Deepam event as part of Marathon specialist Balas 12X12 challenge which covered
12 marathons in 12 days in Decemeber12. One of his runs was dedicated to Deepam and its causes.
Though the objective of the run was not to directly raise funds, the aim was to publicise about the NGO
and garner attention through social networking sites that will be populated with details about his run
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New volunteer Induction programBy Janavi Shyam
Deepam continued with its endeavor to grow its volunteer strength and the final quarter of 2012 was no
different. There were two rounds of induction for new volunteers and we had 25 new volunteers joining
us in these three months. Most of them are young professionals working in varied fields like IT, Mfg, etc.
What is encouraging is that there are a number of college students among the new volunteers.
Deepam believes that the frequency of our induction programs is only likely to go up considering that
new centers will be up and running in 2013. With the growing interest of youngsters to be a part ofNGOs, the pressure will be on us to be inclusive and responsive so we dont miss out on eager to-be
volunteers.
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Scholarship program_TestimonialBy Janavi Shyam
Muthuselvi is from the Deepam 2009 Batch . She was focused, regular and has always been motivating
her friends at Deepam. Her persistent efforts got her good marks and earned her a seat in an
engineering college. Deepam is supporting her college education starting with a full scholarship for the
1st year. Thanks to Paras Shah and the ISB alumni for their contribution towards this.. Muthuselvi
affirms that Deepam vastly helped her in improving her English communication and computer skills. She
strongly feels that this is helping her a lot in College to compete with other students. Deepam wishes
her all the best in fulfilling her ambitions in life.
How can you be involved ?
You can volunteer to teach You can refer a friend to teach at Deepam You can sponsor a child's education You can donate laptop or books
For more infomation, contact Janavi(details given below)
Visitwww.deepam.org.in
Mail us [email protected] call @ 9791088036 or to know more about Deepam or to join us
http://www.deepam.org.in/http://www.deepam.org.in/http://www.deepam.org.in/mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]://www.deepam.org.in/