Reading session for visually challenged students - 15th Nov, 2014 - Session 3

Third session of our reading centre went on well @ Triplicane

Total Students: 29 (26 from Presidency, 1 from Queen Mary's College & 2 from Madras University )

Total number of volunteers: 20 (14 CSS members, 4 from TCS and 2 from Thomson Reuters) Thanks to All.

Pavithra

Jai Sankar

RathiDevi

Balasubramaniam Sir

Renganathan

Ashwin

Bala

Sudha

Karthik

Meenakshi

MeenaKumari

Sripoongothai

Parthiban

Charumathy

Master Varun

Nalini

Manine Thiraviya

Meenakshi

Deepa

Venkat

40 cups of tea were sponsored by the TKKNN Vysya Charities.

5 biscuit packets were sponsored by Balasubramaniyam sir's friend and 1 packet by Bala from TCS.

1.Those who wish to be part of these events can enroll themselves in our site - www.chennaisocialservice.org

2. During the reading session, please put the mobile in silent or in low volume. If you need to make/attend any calls, kindly come away from the premises, so that it won't disturb other readers and students.

3. Please don't share your numbers with any of the students. If they ask for the number to be contacted during the time of requirement, kindly ask them to meet/contact me. 

Kindly share your suggestions/ideas/feedbacks. Will improve our capability.

For any queries, reach @ 98415 50476/ 87540 45125

More Snaps at https://plus.google.com/photos/100029059227283819807/albums/6084006396221652241

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. :-) :-) :-)

VScribe - Annual Report 2014

Supporting differently-abled students / persons in their study work by recording their course contents, reading for their learning process and scribing during their exams. Team's Achievements in Last one year:

491+ exams

16+ recording books

10 assignments

Vegam

Vegam being a massive sports event for Differently abled students, with over 483 Participants from 19 schools in and around Chennai.

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.

Red Drops - Annual Report 2014

In 2013, Red Drops team was handled by Nagappan and he done great works to relaunch the reddrops team with some good effects. In his lead, 88 individual donations and 25 via Blood camp in `State Bank of Travancore`, totalling 103 units...

In 2014, Jagadish took over and managed 249 individual donors and 177 via Blood camp.

Combined Stats:

Total Units: 529
Individual donors: 337
Camps: 202
New donors: 29
Govt hospital: 80 - 85 % contribution.

Thanks to donor, volunteers and supporters . . . . and our team mates... :-)

Blood Camp @ Children's Hospital, Egmore

Food Bank - Origin and Annual Report 2014

Viewer Discretion: The following post contains brutal images of Injured Animals.

Backstory

The story of Food Bank started like this when one of volunteer saw that a plastic bag came flying from third floor of an apartment to a garbage bin which was 50 meter away from the building. When the bag reached the bin, he saw at least 3 dogs and 6 crows running and flying to reach this bag.

Wondering what was there in it.. it was filled with stale food, somehow the animals know what come out daily.

Everyday tons and tons of food goes as waste in hotels, wedding celebrations, parties and even from homes where we have a culture of putting in a plastic bag and throwing it in the garbage/ Dustbin. This way it is not accessible to any living things.

On the other side many humans and animals die of famine and hunger without food. One of the main reasons to survive in this world is for food, and we decided not to let go of food as a waste rather feed hungry mouths (destitute people, children, even animals) at least in this city.

Initiative to save Waste Food

For this we collect food from places where it is getting wasted and transfer to the people and animals that are in real need of food.

After our volunteers heard this initiative they call us started donating raw rice to feed the hungry mouths on the roads. In fact at the end of 4th year of FOOD BANK we can proudly say we have donated more than 13 tons of food for animals.

“There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.” ― Mahatma Gandhi

Although the intention of FOOD BANK is to only provide the waste food to animals, the intention made us to closely work with animals continuously, we got engaged with Blue Cross of India involving in cleaning the shelters of cows, dogs, puppies, cats and on…. including cleaning their fecal matter in the shelter.

11 Tons of raw rice collected for animals till 2013

2 Tons of raw rice in 2014  

Animal Rescue

Later in 2012 CSS started helping in animal rescues. There is always ambulances and 108 facilitates for the humans and the medical help is always there wherever and whenever possible. But for animals even if they fall in a pit there is no one to help. Or no one is skilled to help the animals in vain. So that’s when CSS started in helping animal rescues along with the BCI – We started involving in animal rescues from there on – CSS has gone to the level of rescuing Dogs, Cats, Cows, snakes peacock, pelican, etc and even going up to the stage of filing cases against the culprits who involve in animal abuse and illegal killing of animals. We have followed the lorries and seized those involved in illegal cow slaughters and meat mafias.

One of our Volunteer helping in rescuing a puppy which got its ear cut brutally by a man. He also sat infront of the police station to file the FIR against the culprit for the whole day.

From 2014, FOOD BANK is planning to train interested volunteers who can work for animals on the go.. These volunteers will involve in an intensive training on how to handle different types of animals especially during the emergency and trauma for the animals. We are planning to come up with a medical kit which can be handy and will have all required things and medicines during an emergency.

We could like to continuously thank all our volunteers who have been supporting this project by donating rice, by running during emergency rescues even at odd times.

Our Volunteers helping in rescuing a buffalo

Volunteers helping in rescuing a cow which was hit by the train

Volunteers helping in cremating more than 100 dogs which were brutally killed and buried next to a pond

Rescues in 2013

• 1 Puppy
• 4 Cows
• 2 Snakes
• 1 Pigeon
• 2 Dogs

Sample of what a `Animal Rescue Operation` will look like`:

Subsequent videos @

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qozeWCaHlk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtTThGFPrxQ

Environment Care Group - Annual Report 2014

Reason of Origin

In our fast-paced world we tend to forget about the environment around us. Video games and television can distract us from the beauty of nature outside our doors. But just because we don’t often notice it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t care about the deteriorating environment. Hence this team `Environmental Care Group` is launched.

8 years Journey

In the past 8 years we have accomplished a lot in making our environment more greener. Our work included a wide variety of activities:

1. Sapling Plantation in Parks, Grounds, etc.,
2. Distributed Saplings to Individuals who request tree saplings.
3. Distributed Saplings in Bulk to guests of marriage functions, receptions, etc.,
4. Assisted Isha Nurseries in the gardening, maintenance works.
5. Started monitoring governmental activities on Tree Planting to keep a check on public funds being utilized at it best.

Year	Sapling Count
2009 - 2010	2378
2010 - 2011	2219
2011 - 2012	748
2012 - 2013	1240
2013 - 2014	1050
Total	7635

Though we crossed miles, considering our Goal of attaining 33% forest cover in the country, we are yet to go light years ahead.

Expenditure

Year	Sapling Count
2009 - 2010	91525
2010 - 2011	84251
2011 - 2012	21830
2012 - 2013	09386
2013 - 2014	04611
Total	211603

Our Initiatives - SMS - A - Sapling

SMS A Sapling is a brain child of Mr. Tirupathaiah. This project was aimed at Chennai residents who wish to plant trees in their houses, but don’t know where to procure the saplings, how to plant and maintain them. Under this initiative, whoever sends an SMS GREEN to us @ 8754045124, will get a sapling for free. For each SMS that we receive, we call back them, get their address, advise them on the types of trees and distribute it to them for free.

Launched on 26th July 2009 by Mr.Naresh Gupta Chief Election Commissioner @ Queen Marry college Chennai.

Our Initiatives - Sapling Distribution at functions

We initiated a culture of distributing sapling to guests for special functions like marriage, reception, etc., in Chennai. We are regularly distributing saplings to marriage function, on demand.

Presentation

Links to Photo Albums:

1. https://www.facebook.com/Saiyasodharan/media_set?set=a.774126349285878.1073741857.100000655597076&type=3
2. https://www.facebook.com/Saiyasodharan/media_set?set=a.772487846116395.1073741854.100000655597076&type=3
3. https://www.facebook.com/Saiyasodharan/media_set?set=a.770609949637518.1073741853.100000655597076&type=3
4. https://www.facebook.com/Saiyasodharan/media_set?set=a.736118743086639.1073741842.100000655597076&type=3
5. https://www.facebook.com/Saiyasodharan/media_set?set=a.620446441320537.1073741829.100000655597076&type=3
6. https://plus.google.com/photos/+SaiyasodharanR/albums/5937116720227531553
7. https://plus.google.com/photos/+SaiyasodharanR/albums/5937125276592803265
8. https://plus.google.com/photos/+SaiyasodharanR/albums/5939892083923125185

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