learn newsletter oct 2014

8/11/2019 Learn Newsletter Oct 2014

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Learn Trust, North Thathamanga

Dear Friends!

Greetings! On behalf of Learn Trust, I would like to

thank you all for your massive support for the successful

running of the charity. We are overwhelmed by your

support, suggestions and help! Thank you!

In the previous newsletter (March, 2014), I have

informed you about the activities that we did over the

past two years and I mentioned about the future projects.

The two school students (K. Hariharan and G. Prasanth)

whom we supported for the past two years have finished

their schoolings and joined college to pursue their under

graduation. Since Learn observed these students now to

have sufficient funds to pursue their graduation, Learn

has stopped its funding assistance to them. Of course we

do not want to help someone who has sufficient funds. I

hope you will all agree to this!

In addition to these, you will also notice that Learn has

funded another school student G. Gayathri. We funded

Gayathri with 5000 rupees for the last two years with a

view that she will do her secondary school (i.e. 9 th and

10th) in a government/government funded school. We

have received concerns from some of you suggesting not

to support students studying in a private schools since the

school fee is high. Learn also thinks the same way;

however, we funded this child since she did not have a

government school near by her village. Now that she is

grown-up and can take buses to get to government

school, Learn expects her to take education in the nearb

government school. Hence, Learn stopped its support t

her. Apart from these school students, Learn has now

identified a needy college student Kanishtha, I will writ

to you about her in detail in my next newsletter.

In this newsletter I want to communicate in detail wit

you about an important initiative that Learn has taken i

the last few months. I know some of you might hav

recognised it already; yes it is about the School Initiative

Before I even start to write about this, I would like t

thank you all for the massive support from you all i

every possible way that you all did!

About the Project

In 2013, when I was in India, I had the chance to talk t

one of the school teacher in Panchayat Union Primar

School, North Thathamangalam. As I stepped into th

school, I have seen a very few number of students (abou

23) from classes 1to 5. The important thing that I note

was the school had 8 students in class 5 and 7 in class 4

The remaining 8 students were in classes 3 1. I fereally bad about this situation, mainly because I hav

seen tens of students to run from the school to their hom

as the evening bell rang every day. But, this was not th

case now. The teacher feared that the schools strength i

Newsletterfor you r future October, 20

Iss


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2014 2015 academic year may drop to 15 students,

leading to the closure of the school in a few years time.

The next day morning, I have seen some private schools

vans that came to the village to pick students. I was

astonished to see this happen. Having seen this, I again

met with the school teacher to find out the reason for this.

After my meeting with her, I also met with few parents

and other villagers to know the real situation. After

analysing the situation critically, I came up with the

following answers for the kids to go to private school:

The government school in the village does not

provide English medium coaching and parents

want their children to take English medium

coaching.

The school did not have a better infrastructure

and teaching facility.

Apart from these main answers there were also other silly

reason for people to send their kids to English medium

such as following other people, sending their kids to

private school is a pride etc. Although most of the reason

that I found was reasonable, I cannot accept the fact that

the private schools to which the parents sent their kids

provided a good education. When I interrogated with

those students they were nearly in line with the kids that

went to the government school. So now what is the point

in sending them to private school?

I even met with some parents who struggled to pay the

tuition fee collected by the private school. Some kids

were even thrown out of the school for not paying the

tuition fee. As most of you are aware, the tuition fees that

these private schools collect are horrendous. After

spending enough time exploring about this situation, th

absolute solution to this issue was to request th

government to provide English medium in addition to th

Tamil medium which already in place for over 122 years

To enable this Learn has teamed up with volunteers from

the village, the Schools parent-teacher association et

After conducting a meeting with the schools paren

teachers association, everyone agreed to start Englis

medium in the school. Later we wrote a petition

requisition letter to the local educational officer askin

for English medium in the school. The educationa

officer responsible to the school took our petition as w

approached him in person, and said this is more unlikel

to happen! What a shame?

We then asked him the reason, for which he replied tha

the school and the census area to which the schoo

belongs does not have enough kids and hence he canno

provide the permission (although there is no rule th

says a school should have these many kids to begi

English medium). The next thing our volunteers aske

was, How many students do you think you need?, no

knowing a sudden answer, the official said, at least 20

Every time when we posed a positive question to start a

English medium, he gave us pessimistic answe

However, we were strong and before we left we sai

Okay, if thats the case, in a month time we will mee

you with a list of at least 20 students to join the school!

Having said that, his answer was okay, give me the li

and we will see after that!

Although we were sad after hearing such a pessimisti

response, this situation instilled in us a feel that w

should make this happen. The next day, we sat togethe

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with the school teachers and our volunteers to see how to

attract students and we prepared hand-outs to do door-by-

door canvassing.

To attract more students, in addition to the facilities

rendered by the government, we have agreed to provide

the following facilities to the kids joining our school.

Additional teacher

Uniform and shoes

Transportation facility (first year for free)

Computer facility

Yoga and Science club activities

Classes through video-conferencing etc.

Better infrastructure

We Learn, teamed-up with the like-minded people in the

village for the canvassing. We printed wall posters and

pasted it in the near-by villages (see below a copy of it).

We have also made of big hoarding with the abov

design to place in the entrance of the village, so tha

people can see and get to know of this initiative. Havin

done all these and door-by-door canvassing in the nearb

villages including Akkaraipatti, Devimangalam

Salappatti, Thaluthaalappatti, Valayur, Palayu

Sriperumputhur etc., we had good response from peopl

and nearly 30 parents signed-up for our initiative. Wit

this number and list, we again met with the educationa

officer. This time he had no reason to refuse apart from

saying, most of the parents are not from

Thathamangalam village and that the schools in tha

areas will be affected.

We were smart enough to answer this, because we onl

had the list of parents who sent their kids to privat

schools and we only convinced them. We even ha

interest from some parents who sent their kids to th

local government school, but we said we cannot tak

them (as those schools will be affected). This time th



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officer had no chance of turning us down; however he

said, I will send this to higher officials, I dont think you

will get, we will see! We then left the office and worked

on ways to improve the student numbers and improve the

schools infrastructure.

On a weekend, Learn has teamed up with the local

youths and started in a massive cleaning camp in and

around the school. We established a clean and safe

environment to the kids and created a playground. As I

mentioned in my previous newsletter, AMS. Periasamy

Pillai Foundation has generously provided with 4 sets of

computer to the school. We have refurbished the

computers and our volunteers have established this

service to the school and its now in operation.

The government officer did not get back to us even after

a month. We understood that the officer has no plans to

process our request. Hence, we decided to escalate this to

higher officials. We have sent the petition to the district

education office, collector office and so on. Although

the district officials took some measures, still we did not

get any favourable answers. Then, we decided to go

further. We have brought this issue as a news in The

New Indian Express on 12thMarch.

This news had a good impact and later, our volunteers

also met the Director of school education in Chennai. We

had a very good response from him saying, there is no

reason why we should not provide your school with

English medium. We were happy to hear that response

and his secretary sent order to the district education

office and process the issue. In addition to these, a

petition was also signed up under the public grievances

cell of the Chief Minister of Tamil nadu (See image).

Later, less than a month after filing this petition, we got

response from the cell that English medium will b

opened in the Thathamangalam panchayat school durin

the academic year 20142015. This was the great new

for us, all our efforts of our volunteers and others wh

were involved with us in this initiative. We also receive

a letter from the district education officer confirming th

English medium will be started in the school (see th

communications in the below images).



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Although, all of these happened in March, we did not get

any further communication as on when the school is to be

started. As a result, the number of parents who agreed to

send their kids to our school has started to decrease. W

then again met with the district officer and got fina

confirmation on 30thof May. Finally, we got that. Sinc

we did not have this communication before, we did no

take a string initiative to purchase a used Van t

take/drop the kids to/from school. In a few days, w

arranged all these and bought a used van and got tha

running on the first day of the school (see below

Another charity organisation VitHhave greatly helpe

us to buy this van. Massive thanks to Mr. S

Murugananth and Mr. Gurunana Soundar of VitH. Thi

charity is also helping us with Rupees 5000 per mont

towards staff wages along with Mr. Jayasheela

Vaithilingams contribution of Rupees 2000 per mont

towards the same.

The school was opened on the 2nd June with over 2

students in just class one whereas previously the whol

strength was just 23 (from classes 1 5). This was

great moment to all of us. The activities that we did ovethe few months (after sending out the newsletter i

March) are described in the next section.

Before I finish, I need to thank for the efforts of Mr. P.M

Sabarikumar, Mr. D. Manikandan, Mr. M. Santosh Ra

Mr. T. Sanjeevi and others for all their ground work



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Like always, thank you all for your generous support.

You should all be now proud of what you are doing to

this community and the society in which we live in.

Every small help that you offer will count massively

when it reaches the needy. On behalf of Learn we thank

you all for you kind co-operation and support in this

matter.

Meanwhile, if you have any queries/suggestions please

do not hesitate to contact us.

Many Thanks!

Sincerely,

(Jayasheelan Vaithilingam)

Co-ordinator

Email: [email protected]

Our Activities over the Months

Science Day Celebrati ons

On 28th February, 2014, Mr. P.M. Sabari Kuma

Secretary of Learn Trust organised an event at Shivan

College of Engineering. A special lecture was arrange

through Video Conferencing. Mr. Jayasheela

Vaithilingam spent over an hour interacting with th

students. See photos below. Thanks to Mr. Sabari Kuma

for his immense effort in arranging this.

On the same day, National Science Day was celebrated a

the Panchayat Union Primary School, Nort

Thathamangalam. Students made exhibits and performe

various acts including villuppaatu etc. Prizes wer

awarded to these students for their participation. Some o

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the photos from this event are attached below. We thank

Mr. M. Santosh Raj and Mr. D. Manikandan for

organising this event along with the school teachers.

Well done guys!A big applause for you!



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Students performing Villuppaatu.

Womens Day

Womens day was celebrated by giving sweets.

School Opening

English medium was opened on the 2nd June. A special

thanks to Mr. Deepak Murthy for helping is with

photographs. Childeren came happily to the school as

witnessed in the below image! What a smile and joy in

her face? We should all be pround that we made this

happen with our extra-ordinary effort

The school teachers lighting the start of English medium.

Students gathered for the National Anthem on their fir

day at the Panchayat Union Public School, Nort

Thathamangalam (June 2nd, 2014).



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On 15th August, Independence Day was celebrated.

Thanks to Mr. P.M. Sabarikumar, Mr. D. Manikandan,

Mr. M. Santosh Raj, Mr. T. Sanjeevi and others for their

help and support in organising the event. Mr. P. Selvaraj

donated the school students with a pair of shoes and

socks. Mr. Raja and Mr. Kandasami supported with a

pair of school uniforms for each students.



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Like/Follow us on Facebook

Our Facebook Page:

https://www.facebook.com/learnforyourfuture?ref=hl

Our address

Learn Trust

148, Kudi Street,

Thathamangalam (North),

Mannachanallur,

Tiruchirapalli,

Tamilnadu,

India. Postcode: 621005

Our Bank Account Details

Account Name: Learn Charitable Trust

Account Number: 32353495958

IFSC Code: SBIN0011557 (Srinivasa Nagar Branch

Trichy)

Our Registration Number: 89/2012

We send our sincere condolences to Mr.

Subramani and his family members for the

demise of his wife Mrs. S. Maheshwari.

Mrs. S. Maheshwari supported our initiativewith the school. We wish her souls to rest in

good peace!

Condolences

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learn newsletter oct 2014

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