It's Time to Become a Santa...

A day at Science Fest

"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind"

- Einstein

Today, it was not as usual as we thought. It was raining heavily in Chennai. Weather reports said low pressure area and formation of cyclone around Chennai.. But this surged high pressure within us. Because, today we had planned to take PUSH children to the Science exhibition that has been held at Vivekanada Vidhyalaya Junior College, Perambur.

Early morning confusion : It was not only our wish but also the children's prayers that temporarily stopped the rainfall. The next hindrance came in the form of transport. We had arranged a van for the children. But since it was raining heavily, the van driver refused to come at the last moment. We need to thank Senthil & his family for managing the situation and this early morning confusion was solved.

Fun started : By 10am, Pradeep and Karthik guided the van driver to PUSH and moments after this were comprised of fun and enjoyment. Right from the time the children boarded the van, they started to sing , dance and play games. Karthik D and Gokul joined us in the meantime. We all reached school by 11am. The school Principal, Ms.Usha Rani welcomed us and asked us to proceed to explore things in the Science Fest.

All the stalls in the fest were informative. School students in each stall explained very well in tamil to suit our audience, although they were prepared to explain only in english. Lots of questions were fired from PUSH children and they gathered lot of new information in the fields such as agriculture, global warming impact, civilization etc.

School provided lunch for PUSH children. With fullness of stomach and mind and with a great satisfaction of imbibing few great information, we boarded the van to leave the children back at PUSH by 3pm.

Shubodaya takes this opportunity to thank the Correspondent, Principal, teachers and students of Vivekananda Vidhyalaya who guided us through out the exhibition. It was a day that would have been a gateway of scientific knowledge to PUSH children.

Joy of giving week celebrated by Shubodaya

We wished to participate in Times Now's Joy of Giving event...Shubodaya celebrated the joy of giving in her own way, but after a slight delay. But it was late than never.

We collected dresses from our kith and kin nearby and went to PUSH orphanage today(31st October). Children were happy seeing the dresses. We thank each and everyone who contributed. Shubodaya feels the joy of giving.

Want to make a positive difference?

Hello! We are glad to meet you once again through this blog. While the assiduous process of spending time with the children at PUSH is paused for the past two weeks, considering the quarterly exams in the children's school, we take this time to improve Shubodaya to serve better.

This post is mainly to those who are new to Shubodaya. Although you might have known about Shubodaya before reading this post, here is our small intro - Shubodaya works to enlighten the lives of socially challenged people through education. If you also have the same focus, please join Shubodaya. We welcome you from the heart. The society needs your service.

What kind of contribution you can make to the society through Shubodaya?

You can make a difference to the society by joining Shubodaya. You can contribute through Shubodaya in the following ways:

• Spend time with children in orphanage. Be it an hour or 2 per week, it makes a lot of difference in children's life - More than money, children in orphanages are longing for your time.
• Fulfill children's needs in education - You can coach them in their studies.
• Contributing your valuable ideas/suggestions to serve better to the society
• Sharing your opinions/thoughts that energizes Shubodaya

You could reach us in one of the following ways:

1. Comment on the most recent post in this blog space
2. Email to our primary email id - shubodaya@rocketmail.com
3. Contact any of the following Shubodayans to express your opinions:

• Deepak
• Karthik Purushotaman
• Karthik Dandapani (aka KD)
• Nithya
• Pradeep
• Senthil
• Shankar
• Varsha

Do not hesitate to share your thoughts, even if it is a criticism. Shubodaya welcomes all your thoughts to serve the society at her best. Welcome :)

Independence day memories

Wow!! What a day it was..!!

Celebrating Independence is a joy to every human. This year’s Independence day would be bookmarked as a pleasant experience not only in the life of the children in PUSH, but also for the Shubodayans and Enexions. Here comes our memories...

When we reached PUSH, children had returned from their school after the flag-hoist ceremony. We split the children into 2 groups: 6^th and above, the elderly children and 5^th and below, the younger children. We started off with Calligraphy competition for the elderly children, who were given a paragraph of Indian history to write neatly. The younger children’s events started with coloring competition, during which each child was given a picture of peacock, our national bird, and were asked to color. While the children were busy in these events, we drew tracks for the upcoming games. Thank God!! we were not interrupted by rain on this special day.

After the first round of events, the elderly children were conducted Drawing competition. Children were given topics such as “Jungle, Nature” to draw and they were more creative in their picture. For the younger children games had then started. It was a joy to watch the enthusiastic children, playing games. They played Lemon & Spoon, Dumb-C.

The third round of events comprised of games for the children. While the elder children played Knotting the threads game and Passing the water game, the younger children played balloon bursting game. It was difficult for us to monitor and control the children who busted the balloons with the safety-pins provided to pin the flag, It was enjoyable though. All the games were conducted as a team-event and children exhibited a great level of team-spirit.

As the last round of the events, we had Quiz for the elder children. The same combination of children who played the games as a team participated in the Quiz. Children answered brilliantly to the historic and scientific questions. The younger children would have been inspired by their brothers and sisters performing wonderfully during the Quiz.

Finally, we had the prize distribution. Teachers of Vivekanda Vidhyalaya school. Perambur - Ms. Chellamal and Ms. Mythili and Founder of Enexions, Mr. Narasimhan presided the function and distributed prizes to the children. All the children who participated in any one of the events received a useful prize. While Mythili madam sung "Raghupathi Raghava..." song for the children, Chellamal madam and Mr. Narasimhan gave nice lectures to the children. We saw some inspired faces when Chellamal madam provided encouraging thoughts. We then dispersed after distributing the sweets and snacks to the children.

Overall it was a memorable day for Shubodayans to celebrate the Independence day in this manner. We were gratified by the children’s gratitude. Shubodaya rocks and will continue rocking J

Photo album

Welcome to celebrate the Independence

Thanks everyone for your valuable suggestions. Shubodaya is elated on seeing your trust on her. Based on your comments, we have derived a plan for the Independence day celebration. We have split children into 2 age groups - Children studying 1st-5th std will have these competitions: Drawing, Handwriting, Lemon and spoon (team event), Passing the ball (team event), Balloon blowing, Knotting small threads to form a big thread, Dumb-C, Guest a minute. Children studying 6th-10th std will have: Drawing, Handwriting, Quiz, Thambola, Transferring water to the other end as a team.

Apart from these, Shubodayans will also be playing Kho-Kho and Ring with children. Lot of useful prizes to be won by the children. We hope this would be a memorable event not only for the children in PUSH, but also for the Shubodayans. Shubodaya welcomes you all to join her and feel the joy of independence.

Timing : 1pm to 6pm.
Venue : PUSH orphanage.

Next is what?

Hello again! Seeing the title, don't think its a samsung add :) . This post is to describe Shubodaya's next event. Before that, let us know the current happenings. We are happy to say that Shubodaya's operations are going on well. We are going to PUSH regularly and spend around 3-5 hours with the children. We are creating interest among the students to learn English and Maths by using slideshows, games and videos that involve the subject of the day. For example, Pradeep illustrated "O God beautiful" poem, [the one which children in "Pasanga" film learn in the early morning :)] in a slideshow with the pictures such as Forest, Mountain, River etc. It created a difference in the 6th std children's grasping of the subject, which was palpable when the children said the next week that Yasoda (6th std girl in PUSH) got appreciation from her teacher in the school for telling the poem without any mistake. In the government school in which the children are studying, they will not have an oppurtunity to see such slideshows and so they show more interest on learning through such mediums. We are thinking to create slideshows/videos for each chapter in the english subject book so that children who currently hate english, can easily learn the subject. Similarly, we are thinking of mathematical games for each chapter in the maths subject.

While this activity is going on regularly on each saturday, some Shubodayans are eager to conduct events. We, Shubodayans ask ourselves - Next is what? And yes - we have come up with the proposal for the next event. Its going to be the Indian Independence day celebration in PUSH on Aug 15th. Remember those school days when your teachers organized competitions in the week before the Independence day? Similarly, we, Shubodayans are planning to organize competitions and distribute the prizes on Aug 15th in PUSH. But what competition shall we conduct? There comes the question. It can be drawing or essay writing or oratorical or if you can come with a new competition, please suggest us. It would be nice if this competition is based on patriotism. Please pour in your thoughts as comments in this blog about the concept and way to organize the competition!!! Shubodaya is eagerly waiting for your response.

Shubodaya overspreads

Warm wishes from Shubodaya. We are delighted to say that Shubodaya family overspreads among the good hearts. This became evident when we organized the uniform distribution function on 5th July 2009.

The idea of contributing uniforms came from Mr.Rajamani, proprietor of PUSH. He asked one set of uniform from us, since Bharath and co, college going chaps are already contributing one set. So, we seeked help from Bharath to identify the shop for buying clothes. The next step was to stich the clothes to student's measurements. There came a good experience to us. As we started this process only at the mid May, all the tailors were busy stitching during the start of the academic year - till the first half of June. So, we waited for the tailors to become free and finally went on with the tailor who stitched the other set. It became easy as he already had the measurements. Thanks to Mr.Rajamani who gave us this idea. Lesson learnt : In future, if we are going with such a bulk order, we should start the process earlier to block the dates of the tailor in advance.

On 5th July, we went to PUSH to distribute the stitched uniform to students. That was a beatiful evening with a good breeze. Children just returned from an once-a-year camp, organized by Perambur Church's youth association. They were sharing the day's happenings with us - games, winers of the games etc. We gave the uniform to Mr.Rajamani. Naveen, the eldest child in PUSH, took the responsibility of distributing it to each child according to the details given by the tailor. A great sense of joy prevailed on each of our faces when the children thanked for the contribution.

While returning from PUSH, we were explaining the happenings of Shubodaya to our new joinees :) - Venkatesan (aka Iqbal) and (Athur)Suresh. Our friends - Nithya, Deepak, Madhavan, Umashankar, Viswanathan, Dharani, Paul, Joseph, Dhasarathan,Dinesh Lakshman, Pradeepa, Naveena, Valarmathy - all were eager to attend the function, but couldn’t do so- but they all wished us from their hearts and expressed their desire to join hands with Shubodaya and provide service in the future. Shubodaya is pleased to hear this. This encourages Shubodaya to expand her service to the society with her strength increasing day by day. Thanks to the enormous support. We, as a united group, are confident that we will make a good change.

Shubodaya service to PUSH

Our teacher always insisted us to start a composition with a good quote. It was the time when most famous quotes were invented by self. Although teachers knew that it was an invented quote, they encouraged us by saying “This is not the age to advice world”. This is what a teacher is all about, most sacred profession in this world. Wonder why all these stories? Continue to know more...

Yes, now I remember a good proverb quoted by Dom Helder Camara to start with:

“When we dream alone it is only a dream

When we dream with others, it is the beginning of reality”

A.P.J.Kalam insisted us to dream; We friends in Shubodaya also had a dream, how the world would be if there are no illiterates? How would it be if, one educated person takes the responsibility of inculcating education into an illiterate? Really, it would be fascinating, yes our dream is “Education”.

As a part of this initiative, Shubodaya contacted a remote orphanage named PUSH situated near Red Hills, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. PUSH has 45 orphans whose basic needs with education are taken care by its proprietor Mr. Rajamani. Out of the many orphanages we visited, PUSH was the one who were really interested in getting help for education. We are really thankful to Senthil, Shankar and Karthik for finding such an orphanage.

Pradeep, Shankar, Senthil, Karthik Purushothaman and Karthik Dandapani started our visit to PUSH on 16^th May 2009. Our first few weeks to PUSH was an ice-breaking or silence-breaking session, when we started to mingle with kids. In 2 to 3 weeks kids became very close. Then it was time to start our educational practice and thus segregated children based on their classes.

5 to 6 students from 2^nd grade are taken care by Karthik Purushothaman.

5 to 6 students from 2^nd grade are taken care by Karthik Dandapani.

4 students from 6^th grade are taken care by Senthil.

4 students from 6^th grade are taken care by Pradeep.

Shankar volunteers in the academic preparation for all classes.

This segregation was derived so as to have a good student–teacher relationship. You might wonder what happens to the rest of 25 students in PUSH... As quoted, when dreams come together as reality, unexpected things happen... a helping hand was given to us by another NGO people named Enexions. As we are totally 5 from Shubodaya, helping hands of Enexions sounded great and we cannot forget to thank its head Mr.Narasimman and his crew at this juncture. Saying that, the rest of the 25 students from various other grades were categorized and taken care by Enexions.

As guys in PUSH study in Tamil medium school, it was very difficult for us to adapt to them. When we experimented on this, a game like approach to teach subjects like English and Mathematics was found conducive, by inducing interest with the students also. Thus it is decided by Shubodaya and Enexions to take this path and concentrate on English and Mathematics for now.

When Shubodaya expands in future, our hands can be extended for other subjects too. Saying that, the academic portions that are taught in school are taken care by Shubodaya and in the 5 hours that we spend every weekend, we make sure that students of PUSH are imbibed with some useful knowledge. Statistics on students improvement cannot be shown in this short span. So, keep waiting for our PAS [Performance Analysis Statistics] in another few months. Friends with same interest and dream to make a difference in this world are welcome with extended hands.

Shubodaya is now in the process of structuring a non–formal but an effective practical approach for each and every grade, which in future, will be bench marked with top schools. “Change is what needed” is not only the campaign words for our fellow American, but also to the whole world. Let us pray and put our hands together to bring this Shubodaya’s initiative a huge success.

Team Shubodaya thanks each and everyone who has contributed for our service till date.

Eye Camp at Kaveripakkam

The journey on that day(June 8^th 2008) started as early as 6 o clock in the morning… It was a great feeling to be in a place where everyone around you has the similar thought. No wonder everyone became close to each other instantaneously; thanks to our Vijay with his games in the bus.

We all had a nice breakfast in the village sarpanch’s house. We then reached the location of the eye camp by 9. There we faced a crunch situation as the doctors were late but a big crowd had gathered. Everyone did their best in disaster management to maintain calm within the crowd.

We started off the camp without doctors still not arriving, with the speech by the village head. Again our Vijay coming to the rescue in buying us some more time, who spoke interestingly for longer than we all expected with his mind boggling speech on how eye is important in a man’s life and how well we have to maintain it.

In the mean time, Varsha was tracking down the doctors. Raju and Mahesh started giving the tokens to the people there. Koushalya engaged the people there with her eye exercises.

Finally, Shankar guided the doctors to the eye camp location. It was only after the doctors arrived, we all got a sense of relief. Senthil, Pradeep and Kalidas brought breakfast to the doctors.

The eye testing and consultation began finally. It was a big crowd of nearly 163 villagers who got their eyes tested on that day.

Karthikeyan, Mahesh, Shankar, Senthil and Pradeep did their best to control the crowd and send one by one for testing and made the process smooth. While Koushalya took the registration desk. Rakesh Joshua and Rajath took control of the food court. They supplied food packets to the villagers who came all their way to get their eyes tested.

Thirukkumaran, Varsha, her brother, sister (Neha) and aunt explained the process of getting the spectacles and about the operation process they might undergo to the villagers who were mostly old people, calmly, after their eye testing.

Finally the eye camp ended well. In total, out of 163 people, 105 were identified to use spectacles and 32 were identified to undergo operation.

We all returned back with a sense of delight that we have done something good to enrich the lives of the people in need, with all the support from people who we know and don’t know.

All the spectacles were issued on the next weekend of the eye camp to the corresponding people. Thanks to the village sarpanch who arranged to do so.

On the same weekend, Varsha, Karthikeyan and Shankar collected all the people who were identified to undergo the eye operation and brought them to Chennai. Here, they were treated well and were operated. They were then, sent back to the village together with all the medications they need.

It was our first step towards a long journey which we accomplished gracefully overcoming many glitches.

Thanks a ton to all the good hearts who stood beside us and supported us to reach here!!!