Child Abuse Prevention - Brainstorming Session

An awareness/brainstorming session was conducted on Novermber 16, 2014 among CSS volunteers on how parents can play a better role to prevent child abuse. The main purpose of this session was to have a discussion with the parents in CSS before conducting awareness session among the general public on child safety.

Attendees

Ponmurugan, Venkat, Charu, Ashwinkumar, Meenakumari, Akshya, Akshya’s mother, Sasikumar, Sasikumar’s wife, Rathi, Lakshmi Rekha, Saiyasodharan, Swaminathan, Muthukutti, Manohar, Pavithra, Kanchan, Kothandapani and family.

Session by

Venkat, Pon Murugan, and Kanchan

Number of Parents: 6

At the start of the session, the parents present there stated their expectations from the session. Next, a written survey of 20 questions was conducted to understand how parents interact with their kids.

Next, a discussion was conducted on the responses to the survey questions. The parents explained their responses. Other parents and volunteers gave their opinion on the recommended approach for each question. 

Following were the key takeaways from the survey:

• Children also watch television while their parents are watching. In some families, the children watch television in their own rooms. This is a concern as it may be difficult to monitor the child’s activity. Children try to imitate what they watch on television. For example, Watching WWF or some fight scenes in cartoon shows encourages children to do similar acts. Parents also stated that they avoid switching channels when some awkward scenes are shown.
• Children emphasis on parents following rules. For example traffic rules.
• When children make mistakes, parents talk to them and give them opportunities to correct them. Only then do they shout or beat the child.
• Parents appreciate their kids for their achievements and usually answer queries of the child.
• Parents usually treat their own parents in a respected way in front of their children.
• In some families, fights between spouses in front of the children is a concern. The recommended approach was to take efforts and avoid such fights in front of the children as these fights have a negative impact on the child.  
• Some parents try to monitor their child’s online activities. Monitoring the activities was recommended.    
• Parents are not comfortable using the actual names of private parts. However, it is recommended that parents need to educate their child with actual names of private parts.
• A couple also expressed their opinion on how they find it difficult to monitor their child’s activity when she visits her neighbor.  

Next, Pon Murugan made a presentation on how to prevent child abuse. The presentation focused on why and how parents should talk to their children regularly and empower their children to prevent sexual abuse. Pon Murugan also showed a sample video on how to educate children about sexual abuse.

The session concluded with the participants sharing their opinion on child abuse. Ashwin also recommended that it is essential to educate boys about sexual abuse, and break the myth that boys are not sexually abused.

Heavenly Diwali Celebrations at Home of Hope, Thirunindravur

We are too excited to share the happy and safe Diwali day moments that we celebrated with the cute and enthusiastic kids of Home of Hope, Pakkam village, Thirunindravur...

 

I. Event Schedule

1. We all gathered at the home around 11 AM.
2. Quick introduction of the kids and volunteers.
3. Kids were divided into groups.
4. Kept sand and water beside the area where crackers were to be busted
5. Busted crackers under volunteer's supervision
6. Delicious vegetarian and non-vegetarian lunch served around 1:30 PM
7. Back to Bursting crackers continued till 5 PM.

Complete Pics @ 
http://goo.gl/ylaKPA

II. Highlights

1. The mythology behind Diwali celebration nicely delivered to kids by Venkat
2. Started with bursting 2000 wala and ended with a 1000 wala :)
3. Crackers sponsored by Vidhya (Nandhini's sister), Thomson Reuters and CSS.
4. Sweets sponsored by Mithila and Vidhya (Nandhini's sister)
5. Tasty Gulab Jamun by Surya's mom.

III. Special Applause

1. Cute poem (Kavidhai) delivered by Jagadish about Teachers to encourage kids on how and why one should respect teachers.
2. Nice little toys sponsored by Aravind Sudarshanan, his father and brother.
3. Special cheers to the elders who took part in the event at remote area despite heavy rain showers and difficult transportation. We appreciate your enthusiasm:)
4. Tiru to take pain in buying  crackers at the last hour (late night) despite his busy office work.
5. To all the volunteers for ensuring kids safety.

We hope you all had a heart felt satisfaction in spending time with the kids. There are lots more to happen in future… Please stay on track… We will keep you posted...

Kindly feel free to share your feedback, as they are valuable for any further improvisation.

IV. Volunteers and Sponsors

27 Volunteers:

Ashwin, Haribabu, Ponmurugan, Parthiban, Usha, Nandhakumar, Jagadish, Sai, Sai’s Mom, Surya’s Mom, Sasikumar, Little princess Keerthana, Dhivya, Mithila, Her Dad & Mom, Akshaya, Arvind Sudarshan, His Dad & Bro, Srinivasan, Jeyabalan, Bonthu, Venkat, Tiru, Charu and Mahesh.

Sponsors:
Radha Shivakumar, Varshitha Nagarajan, Sanjeevi Kumar, Akshaya & friends, Anitha, Mithila, Prasana Ilangovan , Srinivasan, Jeyabalan, Aishwarya, Arvind Sudarshan, Parthiban, Haribabu, Ponmurugan, Sasikumar & Friends, Nagappan, S. Indra, S. Aravind, Tapan Kumar Das, S. Prabhu, E. Murlirajan, R. Aishwarya, K. Vatsal, K. Sakthivel, V. Subramanian, M. Jeyasree, G. Omnivas, D. Dhandayudhan, M.N. Chitra, P. Dhanapal, T. Kalyani

V. Finance

Total Sponsored Amount = Rs. 32250

Expenses:
Lunch - Rs. 7000
Crackers - Rs. 3650
Transport - Rs. 500

Total = Rs. 11150

Balance transferred to CSS Account: 32250 - 11150 = Rs. 21100 (handed over to Venkat)

PS: The funds collected shall be used towards Mr. Satish's hip replacement surgery.

VI. Closing

A very special applause to all the donors for their generous contribution and we wish this continues forever...

On behalf of Team Aravanaipu, we thank all our seniors for their constant guidance and thank our fellow volunteers for helping us in making the event a memorable one.

Last but not least, we conclude with a special thanks to all sponsors, and our members who have participated in the event and helped the team. :-) :-) :-)

Nalanda - Annual Report 2014

The Nalanda team aims to instill a sense of responsibility in the student-community towards their society and country. This can be achieved through encouraging the practice of ‘Good habits’ as devised by ‘Munaivar Poonthuraiyaan’. We conduct ‘Good habits’ classes for students of government and government aided schools. Apart from this we also provide financial support to some tuition centers.

Nalla Pazhakka Vazhakkam

An excellent initiative with a very apt name. This activity spans for one full academic year with few phases.

Phase 1

We conduct a moral session to the kids teaching the causes and consequences of being good and bad and the importance of developing good behaviors. Then we introduce them our work sheet / book materials, teach them on how to work out those and distribute to interested students.The material has a tabular chart for each month, where good behaviors and charted in row against days in a month in the columns. The list of good behaviors include,

1. Waking up at 5 AM,
2. Brushing the teeth first
3. Taking bath
4. Helping mom
5. Watering plant
6. Finishing homework, etc.,

The kids will self evaluate for all the listed activities at the end of the day, before they go to sleep.The list of good activities to be followed by the kids is divided into 3 different levels based on the grade they study.

Phase 2

We visit the kids every month, get their work sheets, sign on them and give them feedback on their past 1 month performance, then discuss with them how they felt, did they had any problem in following the activities and try to resolve any issues they had. This review happens every month for maximum 6 months.

Phase 3

At the end of the academic year, we collect the worksheets back from the kids to evaluate their performance under various criteria to identify who has filled them honestly and also continuously. We then either visit those student’s parents or call them to know about positive change in their child’s behavior in the last one year.

Phase 4

Nomination form will be issued to the students, who does this practice regularly and they will nominate themselves for performing truly well.

Then highly performed kids were given some gifts as a token of appreciation and to encourage them, to further continue the activity in their next academic year. They are also issued a certificate of accomplishment. Once they complete their 10th/12th grade these certificate holders will get priorities in availing the sponsorship for their higher studies.

List of schools which are covered in the academic year 2013 – 2014

No	School Type	School Count	Total Strength	No. of Prizes
1	Chennai Corporation (Royapuram Zone) schools	25	573	209
2	Govt. and Govt. Aided High and Higher Secondary schools in Tiruvallur	68	4058	1101
3	Other Schools	12	657	127
	Total	105	5288	1437

• We introduced this practice in 105 schools in Chennai (and outskirts), Tiruvallur District and also in our Tuition centers. The prize includes Pencil, Sharpener, Eraser, Sketch Pen, Wax Crayons, colouring cake, Pen set, Ball point pen, etc.
• We conducted special classes for 12th Standard students on Career Guidance and “The Secret of Success.

Children’s camp

We conducted a two day camp at Tonakilla, Avadi on January 25th and 26th for 41 children from the tuition centers which we support. The idea of the camp is to give children the experience of staying a day out from their normal routine. During these two days, children underwent yoga, military activities like crawling on the rope, tug of war, Karate session, camp fire, scout related activities, session on various knots, awareness on first-aid, Street play, magic show, etc.

Plan for Next Academic year

Plan for next year is to continue the same set of students for minimum of 3 years to understand the changes happened in them. And we find several other ways to motivate the students to do this practice effectively.

Vegam 2014

Venue: Singaram Pillai School, Padi

Date: February 8th, 2014

The Start and Preparation

Volunteers started pouring in from 7.30 AM onwards. All plans, sketches are already done. Each CSS Volunteer knows exactly what their role is and everyone started working on the tasks assigned to them, with occasional guidance from the Senior members. The Vegam Stand was put up, the shamina were decorated with color ribbons, Registrations Desks put in place, systems booted and kept ready, energy drinks being prepared. The whole ground was very active with the Volunteers pitching in and actively engaged in final minute preparation for the Grand event, Vegam 2014.

Around 8.30 AM, Students, Teachers and Parents started coming. They registered themselves in Student Registration Desk and took their seats in allotted places. New volunteers registered themselves in Volunteer Registration desk and allotted to different teams as per the needs and the volunteers interest.

Start of Events

At 10.30 AM, the torch relay started with our volunteers and the light was lit by our Chief Guest "Paalam" Kalyanasundaram Ayyaa.

The first event was started around 11 AM. Its a running race event and the kids participated with full enthusiasm. Everyone was cheering, photography experts shooting the images with full life, the judges waiting at the other end and carefully watching the kids, so even an error of the order of millisecond doesn’t occur and the refreshment committee volunteers waiting with jugs of energy drinks to give to event participants.

As and when the events are completed, the results are reported to MC Desk, certificates are written with the names of winners, runner ups and immediately the children are awarded with medals and certificates. Things were going exactly as planned in advance. As the events are completed, time advanced to 2 PM and all the events are halted for Lunch.

Pure Organic Lunch

The special feature of this Vegam Lunch its almost pure Organic. Starting from Salt, Rice to Vegetables and other ingredients, everything is carefully handpicked to be organic items from various states and even other countries. Yes, Organic Asafoetida was imported from Afghanistan. Its just organic and healthy, but the taste was splendid, that everyone had several rounds of Sambar rice. Big applause goes to Organic Depot for providing everyone with special Organic Food for the day.

After Lunch and relaxation, the events restarted around 3 PM. 4 track of events were happening at a time and there seems to be very little idle place in that enormous ground. The Sun’s heat couldn’t do anything to us. The energy level, the enthusiasm of the kids and Volunteers were soooo high that the Sun itself felt the heat from Vegam.

Closing

The events neared closing by 5 PM and the events were officially closed by inspiring, motivational speech by the School Principal, who supported us by providing the Ground for Vegam 2014.

Prizes for individual events are given now and then and Its time for bigger awards, “The Overall Champion” and “The best cheering team”.

After much hype and tension, the Overall Champion award was given to “NIEPMD, Muttukadu”, for they topped all Gold, Silver and Bronze than the other schools. The runner up for Overall Champion was given to "Premavasam School, Girugambakkam" And the best cheering Team award was given to “Premavasam School, Girugambakkam“.

Overall Vegam 2014 was a grand success. Thanks to the Volunteers, Donors, School and the children. Its been just a month since we conducted Vegam 2014 and we are already looking forward to Vegam 2015.

This table summarizes the achievements of each school that participated in Vegam 2014:

No	School Name	Total Of Points	Gold	Silver	Bronze
1	NIEPMD, MUTTUKADU	530	16	20	18
2	PREMAVASAM, GIRUGAMBAKKAM	295	9	11	10
3	LITTLE HEARTS, SHOLINGANALLUR	250	13	4	3
4	ASHA SPECIAL SCHOOL, EGMORE	225	8	8	5
5	SPASTIC SOCIETY, OLD WASHERMANPET	135	5	4	4
6	SPASTIC SOCEITY, TARAMANI	135	5	4	4
7	ARVIND FOUNDATION, K.K.NAGAR	110	3	4	5
8	SPASTIC SOCEITY, AYANAVARAM	110	2	6	4
9	VISHWAS SPECIAL SCHOOL, KILPAUK	90	3	3	3
10	MEENAKSHI MATRICULATION HR SEC SCHOOL	85	3	3	2
11	VIJAY HUMAN SERVICES, K.K. NAGAR	80	4	1	2
12	VIJAY HUMAN SERVICES, MYLAPORE	30	2
13	SSA Chetpet	30	1	1	1
14	KUMARAN SPECIAL SCHOOL, ENNORE	25		2	1
15	SSA THIRU VI KA (4th Zone)	25	1	1
16	HOPE SPECIAL SCHOOL, AMBATTUR	20	1		1
17	MANASA SPECIAL SCHOOL, PERUNGUDI	20		1	2
18	ATHICHUDY ADYAR	15	1
19	ATHICHUDY, ADYAR	5			1

Limca Record

Another highlight of Vegam is that it is nominated for Limca Records for holding maximum number of Events in a Single day for the differently abled.

Facts and Figures

1. 19 Schools in and around Chennai.
2. 483 Participants
3. 180+ Volunteers
4. 200 Parents, Teachers and Caretakers
5. 73 Events
6. 216 Medals given
7. Overall Expenses 82,676 INR
8. Donations Collected 1,14,400 INR

Volunteers

Full credits for the grand success of Vegam 2014 goes one and only to the dedicated volunteers...

1. Cheering team (Master. Varun (Rathi's son), Venkat's amma & appa)
2. Feedback/suggestions (Pazhanidurai sir, Balasubramanian sir, Swami sir)
3. Photographs/videos (Sruthi, Lakshmi Narayanan, Satish bonthu, Saravanan)
4. Parking (Aadhiseshan)
5. Transport (Anand)
6. Volunteer registration desk (Harshini, Nagappan, Ishwarya, Nandani, Tamil Selvi)
7. Student Registration desk (Pavithra, Lalitha, Haritha, Aarya, Almas)
8. MC desk/certificate (Rathi, Sudhakar, Narayanan sir, Mahesh, Prithvi, Sathish Kumar)
9. Water/Health drink team (Saiyasodharan, Suryaprasad, Thanigaivel, Alagappan, Dinesh, Nivaas, Shravan, Sathya sir, Bala mam, Banu Prakash)
10. Food team (Sasikumar, Anand, Paul, Sruthi)
11. Events Organisers (Jai Sankar, Charu, Venkat, Haribabu, Lakshmanan, Bala mam, Ponmurugan, Tirupathaiah, Gayathri, Raghav, Era Karthik, Ishwarya, Lakshmi Priya, Thilak)
12. Sanitary Help (Ashwin)

Outside Support - Volunteers

More than CSS volunteers, volunteer’s support from other organisations proved very helpful in terms of Volunteer strength. They are

1. The Contingent
2. Cognizant Technology Solutions
3. Thomson Reuters
4. Orchid chemicals
5. SRM college students
6. Sathyabama college
7. Women's christian college
8. Ashok Leyland
9. Healthy family fitness centre
10. Smile Web Radio
11. Many more individuals on their own interest (via from Facebook & "The Hindu")

Outside Support - Monetary

Special thanks to following organisations for their generous monetary supports

1. Cognizant Technology Solutions
2. Sruthi Lakshman
3. Chakrawarthy
4. Thomson Reuters
5. Britto
6. Balakannan
7. Sivakumar
8. Bala Sankar
9. Jaganya
10. Premkumar
11. Meeta Asthana
12. Mahesh
13. Nagappan
14. Mahesh
15. Vyshnavi
16. Shravan

Thanks to the generous donation from our supporters that we received 1,14,400 INR

Vegam Photo Albums:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.747343781957523.1073741833.560706850621218&type=3

https://plus.google.com/photos/106306275468259124452/albums/5992975631067687473