VISWA
BHARATHI VIDYODAYA TRUST
No.
15
May-June
2007
This
newsletter comes after a long
break as the school was closed for the summer in May and upto the
middle June. Many things have happened since then, and the
children have returned to school full of enthusiasm despite the heavy
monsoon showers!
Our
12th Study Centre:
| We
were
happy to inaugurate a new
Study
Centre on the 31st of May in Manvayal village. (Click here
for more on our study centers).
There are
currently 24 students using this centre – nine from Kanjikolly, two
from Gundithal and thirteen from Odakolly. Kuttan, our youth member
has taken the initiative for this and Balakrishnan is the guide for
the centre. The interesting part is that most of the effort in
building the centre was put in by the parents. They contributed the
labour and bamboo for the building, and only roofing and a few other
materials worth about a thousand rupees was given by us. |
|
Children’s
savings – Investing
in the future:
We have extended the
children's
savings
programme from just Vidyodaya school to the villages as well. There
are totally now ninety children from Vidyodaya and about a hundred
more from the villages and they have a combined savings of over
FORTY-FIVE thousand rupees. The idea is to help parents invest in
their children's future and to our surprise the idea is catching on
like wild fire. A hundred more children have joined this month.
The money saved by the
kids and
parents
can be taken out at any time to be used for stationery or excursions
or any other unforeseen need. When they start putting in money on a
regular basis they are even allowed to withdraw more than they have
put in if required, on the understanding that the saving process will
continue. Each child is given a wooden box that they can use as a
piggy bank, and once a month they give the money to the accountants
in the respective area offices.
New
admissions:
Lots
of new admissions this year –
twenty two new, taking the strength of the school to 103!
Sixteen of the new children are from the Chembakolli area, and six
from the Gudalur area. It's also encouraging to see that the
majority of the new students are Katunaickens. Sadly we had to say
goodbye to three of our teachers – Shalini, Molly and Kapila, who
have moved on, but also welcome a new teacher–Shanti. It was also
good to have one of our old teachers, Suja, re-join.
Book
Bank:
About
thirty-five thousand rupees
worth of note books and stationery have been purchased to initiate
the new programme - BOOK BANK at the Area and Village level. These
were bought at the end of May and distributed to the Area centres. All
the books and
stationery (pencils, erasers, sharpeners, pencil boxes, rulers) are
being given at a concession of about twenty percent to kids in the
village by the Area teams. Most of the kids are able to use their
saving to buy the books. The Area teams use the proceeds of the sales
as a ROTATING FUND to keep a stock of books and stationery for the
children of the area.
The
note books were purchased in
bulk
from a Women’s Self-Help group in Kozhikode, making a major
contribution to their economy.
Post
School:
Since
we had a lot of our old students
struggling in the government high school where the teachers are
irregular, we've decided to try a “post school” programme for a
year. We're basically helping the students who are not happy with
high school to write their 10th standard public exams
privately. They have all enrolled in a private tuition centre, but
also come to Vidyodaya in the afternoons for additional maths and
science inputs. There are now six students studying for their 10th
standard public exam with us. Space in Vidyodaya has been a bit of a
crunch, and the post school students now use the same space as the
learning centers.
Vidyodaya's
Student News Networks:
The children
in school have
formed
various news groups – Chemba, Lightning, Twinkle Star, Five Parrots,
Thunder,
Star, and Jingle Bells . The older kids write short articles in
English and Tamil on different issues that they consider “news”.
All these are collected once a month and put up on a huge chart and
displayed in the school. We have decided to translate (when in Tamil)
and reproduce some of these short articles in our newsletter every
month.
And so from
our students networks:
- Three houses get electricity. There
are
forty houses in our villages and we are happy that Unnikrishnan,
Gayathri and Viji have got electricity in their houses. Without light
in the nights it is very difficult to study and do any homework, and we
start fighting among ourselves. We hope more houses get current
connections soon.© Seven Bells
News
- Heavy rains in Devala. For a week
now we have had rain
lashing in the nights in Devala, but not in Gudalur.During the day it
is drizzling at Gudalur. It starts raining only when school gets over
and we have to go home at four. © Jingle Bell
- School bus is too crowded. Our
school bus
comes from Bospara, to Srimadurai and then Gudalur everyday and picks
up 60 students along the way. Half the students have to stand since
there is no place to sit. We have told school to buy a new bigger bus
so we can all sit comfortably. ©Five Parrots
News
- New paint
on school walls. Students think
the new paint is better than before. The school is very pretty now, but
was untidy before. Students are told not to touch the walls for
sometime. They are also asked not to scribble on the walls with
pencils, chalk etc.©Lightning News
- Elephants
visit tourists in Mudumalai. In
the Mudumalai forest two wild tuskers and one group of wild elephant
came to visit. The tourists enjoyed this very much.©Thunder News
Donations:
We
received a surprise, though really welcome, donation of Rs.50,000
from Chanakya and Hazel Kocherla, presently based in Hongkong.
Hazel visited the school many years ago and her sister Beulah
donated a lovely set of encyclopedias which have been much used during
the last decade!
All donations to the Trust are
exempt under Section 80G(5)(vi) ITAct.
The Trust also has permission
to receive Foreign funds No. 0759011.
Address : Post Box No. 28, Gudalur-643 212,
Nilgiris, Tamil Nadu,
Tel
No : 91-4262-261927
Email
: vbvtgudalur@gmail.com
Website
: www.vidyodaya.org
