The kids at the Uroor Kuppam(UK) center participated in the Doodle 4 Google contest conducted by Google last month.
Doodle for Google is a competition where young people were invited to design the Google logo in their very own style based on a different theme.
The theme this year was: My Dream for India
We had very enthusiastic responses from the kids in the UK center. You can check out some of the photos of their drawings here:
E Tv had done a story on Deepam , last children’s day ! Thanks to Rajesh and his crew, for making this colorful video .
and the Part – 2
The previous week, we had taught kids about bridges, their types, their functionality etc, and so decided to give children a hands on experience on what it takes to build bridges. Volunteers were all geared up with all the materials to make this bridge building event a thought provoking one for the kids, but were alsofilled with skepticism about children turning up for the class. slowly by the time it is 5 o clock, we have more than 30 kids in the class, and new kids just kept pouring in.
In a way, we were both happy and scared if we would be able to make the children experience what we intended to teach. so anyway, we take one thing at a time, and decide that the only 5th graders and above will do the bridge building activity in groups of , while the smaller ones will work on dialouge delivery and conversational english. Once again, we were surprised, the smaller ones offered to help the bigger kids build the bridges.
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Children and volunteers formed groups and the ice cream sticks were distributed and children were allowed to choose their bridge designs from the templates. The collection of designs was given on an experimental basis to cater to various levels of complexities and to test commitment levels besides team work and visualising 3 D objects. These included simple truss bridges to more complex ones like suspended bridges, arch bridges and beam bridges based on their strength and load bearing capacities.. The thought that these kids probably don’t get a chance to relate real life scenarios to what they read in books made the whole effort of teaching them and experimenting on it made it a worthwhile experience.
We had invited Ms Lekha Umesha as our chief guest, Lekha is an Architect graduated from NIT Trichy. Her areas of interest are in product design and creative designs. Currently after graduation, she has been learning and doing a lot of complex Modular Origami objects.
we had started working on building the bridges by 5.15 P.M. while the bigger kids were scaling their bridge designs and getting ready making their templates, the smaller kids help them apply glue to the ice creams sticks and also run around spying on other teams and their levels of completion. It was a total fun activity, where we were witnessing a combination of team spirit, leadership among the older ones, understanding maths, physics and the strength of materials.
the Judge arrived at 6:30 P.M and only 1 bridge had got completed by then. when we looked around, we had no hopes of seeing any more bridges getting completed, and she started her work on judging, which included criteria like stability, complexity of design, execution and improvisation from the original design, minimal usage of material for maximum strength and load bearing capacity. after the 1st entry had been evaluated, the heat caught on when children started counting the number of tiles the bridge could bear, and the spirit was so high inside the class room.
subsequently all the entries were evaluated, and the result was announced. Honestly it was a very satisfying event and a memorable one for the volunteers and kids as well, as most of them took more ice cream sticks home to complete their bridges and were planning to bring it to class the following week. Later Ms Lekha remarked that, the enthusiasm in the smaller kids was higher than the bigger ones. while some of them took it seriously, some of them were having fun. while some of them struggled with over ambitious design, some of them did a commendable job with their simple yet strong designs. The struggle was more due to the lack of team work and communication skills among kids, as they were unable to communicate what they wanted to deliver and hence slightly complex designs failed to materialise.In effect, it was a learning experience for both volunteers and the kids. Never mind, it was still a practical lesson learnt.
No festoons or flowers, no dazzling lights or music. Still, the class room wore a festive look and the joyful atmosphere was so thick you could lean on it. The children had come in dazzling colours that matched the excitement in their faces. It was like it was everyone’s birthday.
And what a day it turned out to be! The class started at 9 AM like any other day, with children vying with each other to get the best book from WM Center’s library. Even though the children knew ‘Board Games’ were to be inaugurated after the library session, it was heartening to see that they were well-behaved, not wanting to rush through the books. Soon, when the modest collection of Board Games was thrown open, the volunteers appearing more excited than the kids, it was greeted with loud cheers. The games were an instant hit.
Children and volunteers formed groups and the games were played with great enthusiasm both by the kids and the volunteers. The Center’s collection of games had been procured on an experimental basis to cater to the interests of children of various levels. These included jigsaw puzzles, word games, chess, games based on numbers and shapes. The thought that these kids probably don’t get a chance to enjoy such games either at home or at school made the whole exercise very special and exciting.
The Center had the honour of having Mrs Chitra Nagesh as chief guest. Mrs Chitra Nagesh worked as a Social Science teacher at DAV and at PSBB and currently after retirement she is working with a lot of schools and teaching Ghandian Values. It was a proud moment for Saye and Yeshwant who have attached so much value to her impeccable qualities, and today they could express their gratitude to their teacher in a way she’d feel happy and invite her over to introduce WM team to her. Mrs Chitra Nagesh put everyone at ease with her simple approach and modesty. Her talk on non-violence and appeal to all to shun violence, going deep into root causes of many a conflict, was really thought-provoking to the kids as well as to the volunteers.
Afterwards the children enacted a beautifully conceived skit, show-casing in just 90 seconds the ideals of Deepam and how over the last one year these have been achieved in
A fitting memento was presented by Deepam WM Center to Mrs Chitra Nagesh. In recognition of the excellent support the school’s Head Mistress, Mrs Radha, and the teachers of the school have been extending to Deepam and its volunteers, an acrylic shield with the inscription “Deepam Supported Institution” was presented to the School.
This was followed by cutting of the Anniversary cake and distribution. Children were also given in a take-home packet cakes, biscuits and chocolates.
Truly it was a very satisfying event and a memorable anniversary for Deepam WM.
Later, commenting on the event, Mrs Chitra Nagesh remarked that Deepam’s way of combining fun with teaching is something that even trained professionals struggle to achieve.
We had our first class at the Deepam WM center on Sept 5th 2009 with a dream of introducing computers to the kids and teaching English by using them as a tool and one year later we have realized this dream. It is more than a dream come true for these less privileged kids who are enjoying the english lessons taught using the netbooks.
A sizeable fund was given to WM Center out of the donation received from Roundtable ( Madras Knights Round Table 181 ) / TeamUSA (Indiateam.org), and the co-ordinators wasted no time in inviting suggestions from volunteers on how best to utilize it. Equally quickly, mails were exchanged, needs discussed and the Center’s immediate requirements finalized.
The first was a 5.5’ steel almirah – a long-felt need at the Center. This was ordered, delivered and was in place at the Center and one set of keys was handed over to the School Head Mistress on 31/07/2010. The storage space in the cupboard will be shared between Deepam and the School.
Another immediate need was augmentation of WM Center’s Library. As many as 55 books, hand-picked with utmost care to suit WM Center children’s aptitude, were added. With this addition, the Center will now be able to fulfill its desire to give children more books to choose from, for reading in the class or at home.
15 learning-based games (e.g, Spell-O-Chess, Origami, Number Puzzles, Jigsaw Puzzles) were added to the Center for use under volunteer guidance. It is the Center’s idea to utilize these as occasional diversions to the children without, at the same time, straying much away from learning.
Deepam would like to thank Round Table (Madras Knights Round Table 181 ) and TEAM USA for its generous contribution and we look forward to their continued support to help improve infrastructure at other Deepam centers.