Red Drops to the Rescue

We usually arrange for 50 to 100 Blood donors per month, after strict filtration and more focus given to people from Government Hospitals.

But the last 4 days were completely different. There were loads and loads of blood requests pouring in, even after the basic filtrations. Despite the unexpected number of requests, we managed to arrange 43 units of blood. And with this blood, we supported

1. 3 kids.
2. 2 pregnant women.
3. 2 accident victims.
4. 3 elderly peoples.

Big Applause and thanks to Team co-ordinator Jagadish, and volunteers  Akshyaa, Divya, Rathi, Ashwin and Satish Bonthu for ramping up their efforts to meet the crisis :-) (y)

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. :-) :-) :-)

Annual General Body meeting and Elections for CSGAB

On 19th Oct, General body meeting of CSGAB (College Students and Graduates Association for Blind) and the elections to select the new representatives went on well amidst heavy rain.

Thanks to all the volunteers for making themselves available.

Event started at 09:30 with the registration. Thanks to Monisha, Sangeetha, Sandhya, Vaishnavi, Hiranmayi, Sahana and Deepa from M.O.P. College who managed more than 400 people to get register and assisted them to cast their vote. Also thanks to Rathi, her son Varun, Ashwin, Ponmurugan, Akshyaa, Aishwarya and Priya.

The meeting got over by 2 and after lunch, the elections took place and went on until 05:30pm. Later the counting of votes started at 06:30pm and went on until midnight 12:30.

Thanks to Ashwin, Ponmurugan, Yasodha mam, Praveen and volunteers from CTS for staying until late night.

Special thanks to Akshyaa for pulling volunteers from her college :-)

More Snaps @ https://plus.google.com/photos/100029059227283819807/albums/6077034422422828001

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

Clothes Collection Drive

We made a Clothes collection drive last weekend (Sep 13-14, 2014) to collect unused clothes and distribute it to the following needy homes:

1. Little drops Paraniputhur village.
2. Don guanella missionary, karayanchavdi.
3. Home of hope.

We collected around 15 boxes of clothes, segregated them, packed them and distributed to the above homes.

Volunteers helped in collection:

• Prithvi / Rathi / A volunteer at west mambalam & pallikaranai
• Transport: Satish & Nagappan
• Segregation & Distribution: Ashwin, Venkat, Mahesh & Charu
• Transport: Anand (special thanks to Anand for making this happen, as it was a tedious drive.

Aravanaipu Team sincerely thanks all the volunteers for their continuous dedicated & timely support.

More Snaps @ https://plus.google.com/photos/113267219060276132977/albums/6060411360239533697

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.