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.