The Touch of Green @ Don Guanella School

Sapling plantation in a Special School!
   
On 24th of January, we planted 21 saplings in the Don Guanella School garden. The event went well. The green warriors for this event were Arun, Surya, Saiyasodharan, Gurubaran, and Anandh.

School students Arun and Amul joined us in digging the pits and watering them.The tree saplings were planted with the help of school teachers and kids. They showed a lot of enthusiasm.

Volunteers were provided with the lunch as well as the refreshments.
 

As a whole it was awesome cloudy day.
      Few Snaps: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.922882534398214.1073741829.100000294298719&type=1&l=15769705ae

Team Nalanda's "நற்குண ஆசிரியர் விருது"

As discussed in previous monthly meet, the Nalanda team identified the schools where we underwent our good habits session for 3 years.
We have shortlisted 2 such schools and done a survey with the students for whom we taught this practice, regarding their beloved teachers. With the overwhelming response, we have identified 3 teachers. This is based upon the opinions from the students directly.

he list of teachers are as below:

திருமதி. சுருளிமணி
மணலி புதுநகர் அரசு மேல்நிலைப்பள்ளி, சென்னை – 600 103

திருமதி. செல்வி
மணலி புதுநகர் அரசு மேல்நிலைப்பள்ளி, சென்னை – 600 103

திருமதி. வசந்தி
தியாகி சத்தியமூர்த்தி நகர் நகராட்சி நடுநிலைப்பள்ளி, சென்னை – 600 019

On Oct 13th, we visited the schools and handed over the momento, KADHAR towel, pen set and chocolate to the concerned award winners during the assembly.

Thanks to Palanidurai Sir, Venkat, Prithvi, Satish Bonthu, Tiru and Jagadish for felicitating the awardees.

Since we decided to award the teachers with REAL MERITS, our selection process included surveying among students. The whole process goes like this:

1. Students are given a Feedback form with 10 questions including the favorite Teacher Name, Reason on why the Teacher is favorite, etc.,
2. The filled forms are collected, aggregated, writing down all the reasons in a separate sheet, giving weightage to genuine reasons.
3. The teacher who was favorited by more than 30% of students were given the award.
4. In the memento given, the top 5 Touching reasons wrote by their students was printed.

Please find the snaps attached taken in Manali New Town Hr. Sec. School @ https://plus.google.com/photos/100029059227283819807/albums/6076840985291974145

October 2nd Week - Sapling Distribution

We had 2 awesome GREEN events this week and it went awesome :-)

Vana Mahotsav @ JRK Matriculation School, Vadapalani

JRK School is celebrating Vana Mahotsav festival by planting trees in their Campus by the school Students. We picked up 50 saplings from Adambakkam Isha Nursery and delivered for the festive.
Big Kudos to Akshyaa and Arun Prasad for the Distribution :D

Snaps @ https://plus.google.com/photos/116575681234767831679/albums/6069590229673253729

Kodungaiyur Sapling Distribution

We resume this year's Sapling Distribution Activity of this year in North Chennai with this event. There were plenty of requests around Kodungaiyur in Perambur, Kolathur, Red Hills, Thiruvottiyur and more with our Isha Nursery localted at Kodungaiyur.

As a start, we delivered 10 saplings to a Tree Lover in Moolakadai :-) More distribution activities to be planned in the same area in upcoming weeks :-)

Snaps @ https://plus.google.com/photos/116575681234767831679/albums/6069591191975818273

If you would like to Volunteer, reach us @ environmentcaregroup@gmail.com / 9952998132

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.