Independence Day 2011 - through the eyes of Railway colony (ICF).

In the truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be won...

-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

It was the day 65 years ago, when the martyrs’ bloodsheds reaped its rewards. With the feeling of braveness and a feel of freshness, it was India’s Independence Day, celebrated by team SHUBODAYA.

Children are fathers at times and we learn plenty from them. Their hearts is where god lives. We Shubodayans are gifted to celebrate our 3^rd consecutive Independence Day celebrations with children.

This time it was at Railway colony (ICF) government school at Aynavaram, Chennai. We Shubodayans reached the location at 7:45AM. We were given a warm welcome by the School’s Principal, Mr.PURUSHOTHAMAN.

At 9:30AM, the flag hoisting was done by our Shubodayan Pradeep Sathyamurthy.

We then organized the students into two groups such that the students of class 6, 7 and 8 were formed into a single group and the students of class 9 and 10 were in the other.

We planned for conducting Drawing, Handwriting and Quiz competitions. Different Shubodayans took charge of different activities.

We conducted the Drawing competition first and then the Handwriting competition and then the Quiz competition. Every student took part with eager and their eyes expressed their zeal to win. All the students gave very good attention for all the activities conducted. It was a tough decision to make for our Shubodayans to select the winners. It seemed like everyone is capable of getting prizes.

Independence day celebrationsRailway colony

The event was more enlightened with the arrival of our chief guest Mr.Shanmugam. He is one such person who has framed discipline and instilled patriotism in many of our Shubodayans in his history of teaching… (Great to have u sir). As soon as he entered, a broad smile sprung up in our faces (a feel of belonging). He presided the prize distribution ceremony. The winners were awarded with certificates and prize.

It was an enlightening program for all the children at the ICF School. We (Shubodayans) had a good time and it was a great experience. The volunteers of Shubodaya must be thanked at this moment for their great co-ordination and their willingness to serve the future pillars. The team work that was on display was marvelous. Kudos to you all. It is this kind of a spirit that will lead India to heights.

“இனி ஒரு இனி ஒரு விதி செய்வோம் ,

விதியினை மாற்றும் விதி செய்வோம் ”

(Let us make a new beginning; Let us make it right!)

Our road to success is ‘enlightening through education’. And YES, We are on track.

Independence Day celerations (2010) - memories

"Swaraj is my Birth right; I’ll have it", "Satyameva Jeyathe", "Inqulab Zindabad", "Vande mataram", "Jai Hind"... still our ears are hearing these freedom slogans in voice of pethankuppam school students. Yes, it gave us the feel that all our freedom fighters were-born. It was evident that these re-born freedom fighters will never stop until they make our nation as the supreme power in all fields. On our 63rd Indian Independence day these budding talents of Pethankuppam(Cuddalore district, Tamil Nadu) exemplified that Abdul kalam's vision of India 2020 is no more a dream and we are already in the path of achieving it.

We are here to share the happenings of that memorable day to all shubodayans. The team which represented Shubodaya at Pethankuppam started to celebrate the Independence day from 6 a.m in the morning. With a fully loaded vehicle our team left Perambur by 6.30 a.m in the morning. And we picked up some Shubodayans on the way. We reached Panruti by 10.30 a.m. With some new faces, all the 15 Shubodayans landed on the Pethankuppam middle school. We were given a warm welcome by the school Head master and teachers. All the school kids were anxiously waiting for our arrival and after seeing us, the joy on their face made us to realize the real meaning of the service we do for the kids.

People in Pethankuppam were really supportive.. The words that we heard for the whole day was “What help you guys need?” . Thanks to all of them. We are bound to describe the hospitality at our Shubodayan Akshaya’s residence. For most of us that might have been the first carpet welcome (though it was not the red carpet, instead a blue one :)). Hearty thanks to their family, especially Akshaya's parents. We all felt that without her family it would have been very difficult for us to execute our plan on that day. Your support was the dais of the function. The Ex-President of the Panchayat, Mr.Arjunan was also very helpful to us and they rendered all their support to continue the event without any hiccups. Not to forget the Head master and the teachers who extended their support even before the event started.

Independence Day 2010

We conducted many competitions, both indoor and outdoor - Calligraphy, Collage, Quiz, Skit, Kho-Kho, Running race to name a few. Kids participated enthusiastically in all the events. Each and every kid was special on something and we also had some all rounders. At one point of time we thought it will be very difficult to recognize each and every winner, because there was lot of hidden talent in each of them.

Hope it was a good learning session for Shubodayans from kids. Kids' talents demands Shubodaya to do more ground work before the events. Finally with all help we were able to see lots and lots of smile in the face of each and every kid. With those photographs of smiles we left the school with the contended heart.

It was a very great day. And there are no words to explain the service rendered by all the Shubodayans, who came on that day as well as those who rendered help to make this event a grand success. Each and every one took a responsibility and they assured the successful delivery. Hats off to all of us. We guyz made the day.

These events are just the stepping stones for Shubodaya still a lot more service is pending from her. But Shubdoya always reads impossible as I’m possible. So, there is no stopping for her. Jai hind!

Welcome to celebrate Indian Independence along with Shubodaya

Shruti has rightly guessed. We are planning to conduct competitions similar to last year, but in a school this time. Come and enjoy the freedom with the kids.

Venue: Ooratchi oneriya nadunilai palli, Pethankuppam, Cuddalore District
Time : 11am to 6pm

Welcome you to celebrate independence with Shubodaya. We have sent out our invitations to all of our Shubodayans. Do reply to our primary email Id if you are joining us. Looking forward to see you on Sunday!

Sponsoring a child's education

Hey Shubodayans... After quite a long time, Shubodaya feels an awesome experience to meet you in this post.

In our last post, we hinted on a plan - "Field Triangle". While there is a delay in our implementation of our Field Triangle plan, we have now stepped into a new continuous activity. Right from the eye camp at Kaveripakkam, we have been into short-term events or activities. While we are happy and proud to continue organizing such events, we feel that we are progressing in envisioning our motive - to enlighten the needy with education.

Recently, Shubodaya helped a deserving student - Vimala(studying 10th class) - to continue her education taking away the financial obstacles. Materials needed for her education and the tuition fees has been sponsored by us. This has motivated her to strive hard to achieve a good result in her first board examination. We will take care that she does that with ease and gets into a good college. Shubodaya thanks each one of Shubodayans, especially Akshaya, Karthik, Pradeep, Senthil and Valarmathy who extended their support in implementing this new initiative.

If you come across a child struggling to continue education, please do not hesitate to contact Shubodaya. We will do our best to make him/her study. We are working on to structure and sort things to track on the performance of the child whom we are sponsoring. We are seeking advice from experts in this field such as Vazhai to learn to do this service efficiently so as to serve the society even better.

Please share your views/suggestions to improve and energize Shubodaya. And can anyone guess what is our next event? Do comment that. We will meet in our next post to inform that.


A nice quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson to end this post:
"Don't waste your life in doubts and fears: spend yourself on the work before you, well assured that the right performance of this hour's duties will be the best preparation for the hours or ages that follow it."

Visit us @ www.shubodaya.org

Hi people..We are very glad to announce our website launch. Though we use this blog to communicate the happenings, many were complaining that the blog is blocked in their network. So, we decided to have a website for Shubodaya and this is achieved today. We will continue blogging here and will have a gist of our important happenings and links to our gallery in the website.

At this juncture, we are also happy to say that a new initiative "Field Triangle" is been made and we are progressing in implementing it very soon. We need all your blessings and wishes to make this initiative a success one. Meet you all in the next blog, explaining about the "Field Triangle". Warm regards.

Became a one-day Santa

Happy New year to all of you :) Wish all your good dreams come true in the days ahead :)

We celebrated Christmas last week in our own way by becoming a one-day Santa. Karthik from Infosys told us about the "Become a Santa" initiative being done by Sneham group. We thought of doing the same in our own path - gifting children with items that motivates them to learn.

The Sunday before Christmas, Senthil and Karthik went to PUSH, collected the wish list of children there. Children selected their desires from the the list of items such as Bharathiyar Kavithaigal, Oil Painting materials, Puzzle books etc. They also came out with their own wish. Naveeen for example, asked for a Englsh-Tamil dictionary which was not in our list. We then started buying the items in the following week and on the day of Christmas, we distributed the items they had wished. We took only 3 photos during the day of Christmas, which can be seen here.

We also played the Christma-ChristChild game in a different manner. We would like to keep this as suspense until one of our Shubodayans come up to express it in the comments section. Let us see who would be the first?

P.S 1: Title of this post is reminiscent of the email subject we sent during the invitation. We actually became one-day Santa only on the day of the Christmas and not before we invited you all :)

P.S 2 : Shruti, Pradeep and all others who didnt want to express their anger on us for not publishing the happenings immediately, Apologies from us. We would try to correct this mistake in future.

It's Time to Become a Santa...