Thesathirku Thol Kodu (தேசத்திற்கு தோள் கொடு), April 25, 26 - 2009

Thesathirku Thol Kodu (தேசத்திற்கு தோள் கொடு), an initiative by Shanti Ashram Coimbatore, is organized every year with an objective to ‘Gather people & organizations who are inclined towards the betterment of our society and thereby contribute to the progress of the country and our human race.’

The event is attended by people working in different fields. This forum served as a platform to about know people working in other areas and helped in strengthening the social welfare network.

Vidial coordinated Thesathirku Thol Kodu – 2009, which was held at Kuthambakkam – Periyar Samaduvapuram, Chennai on April 25 & 26.

Kuthambakkam, near Chennai, has been a model Panchayat not just for to its unrelenting appetite for new ideas, but for innovations and implementation of concepts. Just Google Kuthambakkam or Mr. Elango Rangsamay, you would know why it was chosen as the location for this year's event.

The event was attended by the following teams and a few other interested persons,

• VYSWO (Village Youth Social Welfare Organization), Dharmapuri -http://vyswo.com/
• G-18, Coimbatore
• Social Welfare Organization, Ennur, Chennai
• Anavi -http://www.anavi.co.in/
• 5^th Pillar, Chennai -http://india.5thpillar.org/
• Makkal Sakthi Iyakkam, Chennai.
• Shanthi Ashram, Coimbatore -http://www.shantiashram.org/
• M.S.Swaminathan Research Foundation, Chennai - http://www.mssrf.org/
• Thesam
• Disha Foundation - http://disha-activist.livejournal.com/
• Global Society Makers, Chennai
• Helping Hands, Chennai.

During the Saturday morning session, each team was given 15 minutes to explain about the area of their work, their projects and vision. In the evening there was a visit to the Kuthambakkam village to see the beautiful things that are happening there.

In the evening we had a captivating speech by Elango Na, a speech which made everyone think about what they are doing and also helped all of us get more focus. Our member Santhakumari gives an account of the captivating speech in this blog post.

There was also a session called Request and Response, in which different teams presented their requests to other teams which had come to the event.

Overall it was a good learning experience exposing, everyone present to, a lot of new ideas, thoughts and avenues that need to be explored for improving the living standards of the society. The event also reiterated the fact that what Vidial is doing is a very small activity when compared with the social challenges faced by our society.

We would like to thank Shanti Ashram for providing us with this wonderful opportunity and Elango na for agreeing to have this event at Kuthambakkam.

We also give our heartfelt thanks to Parthi na (G-18) and Nandha na (Makkal Sakthi Iyakkam) both of whom guided and helped us throughout the event. We also thank all other persons / organizations who helped us in making this year’s edition of Thesathirku Thol Kodu a successful one.

As we came out of the event, our resolve to serve the society, which has given so much to us, become more strong and passionate. Hopefully we would do more, time will tell.

Morning Session on Saturday

Elango Na addressing the forum

2009 Vidial Beneficiary Xth & XIIth Results

The results for XIIth Standard and Xth Standard have been announced in Tamil Nadu.

Some of the students supported by Vidial had written Xth and XIIth. We would like to share their results with you.

Results from Araivanaikkum Anbu Illam, Coimbatore

From illam, Ekamoorthy (Reg No: 299077) and Jacob (Reg No: 299081) faced twelfth exams this year. They scored 616 and 674 marks out of 1200. It is really good to see Ekamoorthy clear his exams despite having trouble in one of his ears, which was giving him constant pains and trouble in hearing. Both of them were attending a Government school nearby.

We had more strength in Xth standard where 12 students faced the exams. Out of them 8 people successfully cleared the exams. Their marks are as below.

Name	Reg Num	Total	Tamil	English	Maths	Science	Social
Pugazhmani M	272750	241	50	49	49	39	54
Saravana kumar E	272797	288	69	48	52	52	67
Vaisa kumar P	272768	274	61	60	55	39	59
Yuvaraj M	273649	207	58	43	23	48	35
Utthiraprabhu K	273647	407	84	67	95	74	87
Sathishkumar C	273641	196	50	37	48	25	36
Sarathkumar J	273640	217	50	43	50	35	39
Suresh P	273645	275	71	48	60	37	59
Abinaya A	273650	103	32	33	13	10	15
Rafiya M H	273677	328	81	67	66	52	62
Sivasamy D	273643	190	43	43	44	23	37
Praveenkumar R	273637	225	56	42	46	36	45

Other Results

• Nivithiya(Reg No: 298753), Vidial’s first beneficiary from Coimbatore, has scored 808/1200 in the 12th board exams. Now she is interested to do B.Sc Mathematics.
  

• Sarathy T (Reg No: 473581), our beneficiary form Mayiladuthurai has scored 921 marks in XIIth standard.

We are in touch with all the students and charting out the plans regarding their next step.

Tenth Standard results can be seen by giving the register number in the following website.

http://www.pallikalvi.in/jmdfesdvdfgderef123wsewasdwws.htm

Similarly twelfth standard results can be seen in the following site,

http://www.pallikalvi.in/r35sfrf46@edt!@$DFSFsdf.htm

It took us some time to collate the Register numbers of the students, hence the delay

VIDIAL SUCCESS DIALS

Just a few interesting stats to savour. We have compiled some figures based on our complete success history till now. We thought we could probably call them something fancy like 'Vidial Success Dials' ....

PROOF OF THE PUDDING - LATEST SUCCESS STORIES

'The proof of the pudding is in its eating' they always say. After all the effort that goes into picking up a beneficiary, arranging resources for him/her, mentoring and keeping touch, nothing gives us more satisfaction than the sight of the person out with flying colours and becoming independent. In this post we are proud to bring out some of our latest success stories. This year's successes represent beneficiaries from a wide range of careers, courses and geographic locations.

1) Suresh, who is doing his Bachelors in Veterinary Science, has entered his House Surgeonsy period. He is yet to decide on whether to take up private practice or to study further.
But we are very proud of his achievements and are happy for the fact that he can now take care of his 2 brothers and his widowed mother. His father would have been proud of him today.

2) Anandhraj from Mayiladuthurai is just a few weeks away from realising his ambition of becoming a mechanic and supporting his family. We supported him for his ITI training and his hard work has got him a job in a reputed tractor company with a good income.He can now take care of his ill father and his struggling family.

3) Balaji, Loganathan and Ramesh all doing their Diploma in Mechanical Engineering from Erode have really repaid the faith we put on them in a big way. Balaji has been placed with Spicers India, but is looking at more lucrative offers in the Gulf on the long run. Loganathan has been placed in Sakthi foundations and Ramesh has got an offer from Sanmar.

4) Anand from Bangalore is another beneficiary we are very proud of. His is a very unconventional story for us. He is a Mridangam Vidwan and we supported him in his efforts to obtain a Diploma Degree in Special Education(visually impaired). His story is a first of many sorts for us.
a) First non-tamil success story(he is from Bangalore and speaks only Kannada)
b) First success story of a physically challenged beneficiary
C) and he is First success story of an individual with such a unique career choice.
We hope that going forward Vidial continues to break such firsts and functions as a pan-lingual, pan-geographic, pan-vocational and comprehensive career solutions NGO.

5) Last but in quite a few ways one of the best is the story of Shyam Sundar who has hit a double whammy with a State 5th rank in Diploma and a placement with HCL in Salem.

We are also looking forward eagerly to the progress of beneficiaries like Jayalakshmi (DTP course), Govindarajan(Catering course) and a few others for whom we have already finished providing the support required.

Bangalore Beneficiary meet, May 11th

On 11th May 2008, Bangalore beneficiary meet was organized at Lalbagh gardens. The meet, a day long event, was attended by 8 beneficiaries (Includes old + new beneficiaries + their sisters & brothers), 5 Vidial members and five more people who are associated with Vidial.
The fun began at 11 in the morning with an interaction game, in order to make things more interesting and enjoyable the entire lot was split into 4 teams, each team was led by a kid and also having a name. The teams formed were,

• Power Rangers team headed by Rajitha.


• Super Kings Team headed by Arun.


• Lotus team headed by Madhan.


• Chuchan Rangers team headed by Boopathy

Each team had a brief discussion and the team leaders came forward and introduced others.

After the intro the a game was held using a cycle tube. Each team has to form a chain and pass the cycle tube through the bodies of all the team members without the tube coming out of the chain. The kids found it amusing to pass the tubes through them, after the game everybody had a refreshing course of fruit salad which was prepared freshly by the parents.

It was time for the fun filled version of volley ball, instead of the normal ball balloon filled with water was used. The ball has to be caught and hit back using a bed sheet held together by four members. Super Kings may not be have won the final in IPL, but they won it here after a engrossing encounter.

Now it was time for drawing, that too on glass. Deepa drew a beautiful flower on glass and taught them how to do a glass painting. The kids were then given materials and they started painting whatever they knew and came up with beautiful paintings. Everybody had lunch after the painting was over.


After lunch, in order to improve the thinking and creativity of the kids, the kids and few of our members were split up into two groups and asked to enact a small drama. Right from the choice of the script to casting of characters, everything was left to them. At the end one group told people should not be greedy by enacting the story of the The Woodcutter and the Axe whereas the other team enacted a play which emphasized people should not steal.

By the time it was already four and hence we decided to wrap up things. The kids along with the paintings they had drawn were given some charts related to computer, sports, etc. We were happy when some of the kids asked why can't we meet tomorrow. Certainly these meets will be held hereafter at least twice a year.

Our member Kathish says, “I enjoyed my time with the kids, sharing their views and discussing with them. Thought after that I should not have missed other beneficiary meets as well. Past has gone, will try to attend all other beneficiary meets at various locations.”

Sudha felt that “There should have been a discussion amongst us before a programs like this. Because I felt few were concerned about the winning of their team and make the kids feel happy. Instead the main motive is to make the beneficiaries think and apply their idea to win or lose.” This is a valid point which will be given more importance in future.

We would like to thank the parents, the kids and our friends Kavinmozhi, Manohar, Suganya and Venkatraman who came for the meet.

Learning with Fun

The morals and ethics which our education system imparts to our Children has been decreasing day by day and needs immediate action. Though our system produces a lot of professionals and graduates, it has failed in its main goal of make a person capable of thinking and acting of his/her own.

Vidial was presented with an opportunity to address this situation by Shanti Ashram. Shanti Ashram wanted to conduct an Ethics and Values Workshop in association with Vidial.

We didn't want to miss this golden opportunity, since we believed these kind of ventures are extremely vital in improving the society. When we were pondering over where to conduct this workshop, the Mayiladuthurai beneficiary meet came into our mind, the enthusiasm, foresight and the hard work of Kumar sir during the meet made us believe that we can have the workshop at Mayiladuthurai. Though Sathish (Mayil) [the only vidial member from Mayiladuthurai] was onsite. Santhakumari from Vidial took the responsibility of all the arrangements to conduct the workshop on 20th of April.

On 20th of April at a hall in Mayiladuthurai, Parthi na and Dhivya from Shanti Ashram, Coimbatore along with Kumar sir conducted the workshop which was attended by around 50 students. The Workshop theme centered around 6 Topics : Respect, Responsibility, Reconciliation, Empathy, Reforming the world and Understanding People. The day started with 'Tamil Thai Valzthu' sung by 3 kids attending the workshop followed by a crisp welcome address from Kumar sir.

The first event of the day was a witty treasure hunt game. Kids enjoyed the game (It was new to them) and after 30 minutes of excitement found the final treasure which was the "Respect, Responsibility, Reconciliation, Empathy, reforming the world" (written in a small paper :-)) . After the game, Parthi anna spoke on Respect, Responsibility, Reconciliation, Empathy, reforming the world explaining it to the kids.

It was followed by a small empathy skit, which was not a normal skit done on stage. It was a skit enacted without the knowledge that it is a one. Divya hid a 100 rupee note in one of the kid's notebook without the Child's knowledge, later Parthi na started the drama saying he lost his 100 rupees and asked everybody to check for it. At last it was found in the girl's notebook, the girl started crying and her innocence. Though Parthi na knew it, he asked the crowd for their opinion. Many believed she is not guilty, while some wanted her punished. When the girl's friends also started shedding tears, the ice was broken and the empathy which surrounded the place was explained. Also it was explained that a judgment won't be correct unless we know the person.

After this, Kids were asked to paint on T shirts and towels and posed with their colorful Shirts.

Our member Santhakumari says that "I liked The T-shirt painting competition very much. It gave the Kids a outlet for imagination. When Parthi na asked the children to whom they would like to give the painted T-Shirts, more than 80% wanted to give it to needy person, two of them gave to their Guru Kumar sir, one child gave to Parthina"

Everybody again assembled after an hour's lunch break to have have more games and wisdom
Games like Ball game, 'Save your Balloon', Rope game, Observation game etc were conducted to show and impart various values to the kids.

The beauty of the day's proceedings was reflected during the feedback session when a kid came forward and said " I learnt, Whatever maybe the problem, one should never cry, instead we should spend our time and effort to find a solution".

Harish Kannan was moved by the feedback session and adds that,
"I felt the impact of the workshop, when a small girl, probably studying in some 4th or 5th standard, comes up and tells that she has got an idea of helping others. Children when taught something in a playing environment tend to be in a playful mood and don't worry about the learning part of it. But even with all the games, a child understanding the core of the program is a very big achievement. "

Muthukumari one of our volunteers who had come all the way from Chennai said, "Today I learnt that how games can be used to impart values to the children. The painting part was really superb, it gave a window for the children to let out their creativity. These kinds of workshop shows the defects in our educational system which fill our empty head and not our heart. More workshops like this can turn the children into good and responsible humans".

In the end Parthi na distributed charts on child rights to representatives of different schools, including our Vidial Kid Harish (He is a manager in an automobile company) who took one for his school. Shanti Ashram certificates were distributed to all students who participated in this workshop. The kids were very lucky to have these values to be introduced to them, which might leave a profound impact in their lives. We believe majority of the kids who attended the workshop will be practicing the values forever.

We are great full to Kumar Sir for organizing the workshop in a very short notice. The pain he took to gather students, arranging a hall and doing even simple logistics like buying ballons, paints, snacks etc inspired us a lot.

We would to convey our sincere thanks to Kumar sir, Parthi na & Dhivya for giving us such an opportunity. We plan to do more workshops of these kind for the year 2008-09.

Mayiladuthurai Beneficiary meet - March 1

Close on the heels of Chennai beneficiary meet, a similar beneficiary meet was organized in Mayiladudhurai on the evening of March 1st . The meet took place in Kumar Sir's tuition center. Kumar sir is our facilitator, mentor and acts as the pivot of Vidial's activity in Mayiladuthurai region. Kumar sir is working as a Tamil teacher in Melaiyur School, he is a multi faceted personality. For example despite being a Tamil teacher, he takes Maths tuition for Xth standard, is one of the best public speakers, takes part in a number of philanthropic activities and so on. We can go on listing his activities which would take a long time, lets come to that at a latter point of time. Presently, Kumar sir is taking care of 8 beneficiaries and is one of the important pillars responsible for our increase in our beneficiary count this year.

The beneficiary meets organized at Chennai and Coimbatore had given us some good lessons and hence we were geared up a little better with a decent plan. Since the meet place was a Tuition center, the center students also joined the fun. It helped us in a certain way that nobody except Kumar sir and Vidial members knew who are the beneficiaries. With the almost everybody being in their later part of their teens we were also able to link with them easily. After the games, everyone was asked to speak on their aim in life and whatever they wanted to tell. Initially it was tough to make them speak, but once a few spoke, the momentum started building up and at one stage we were pondering how to wind up since it was getting late. Speaking to a Public Audience gives a person a lot of courage, hence, we made sure that everyone spoke. One of the students in the tuition center got pretty much excited and he started narrating how he started dancing, how it gave him confidence, how his friends helped him, etc for about 15 minutes, it was with some difficulty we made him sit. We felt bad in stopping him, but already it was about two hours and it was getting dark, hence we had to stop him. Every beneficiary had spoken about his aim before the audience itself which was meticulously noted down. We had a private word with each of them to know what are other things which they needed.

The parents who had came thinking that this would be another meeting stuff were amazed by what happened. One of them asked everyone of us present there to take a pledge that, "After getting a job, each and everyone should contribute to the society in some way". Certainly, it moved us a lot.

We were honored by the presence of Pannerselvam Uncle, Elanthangudi School headmaster, who is also our facilitator at Mayiladuthurai. Pannerselvam uncle is a benevolent headmaster and is an active philanthropist.

On the sidelines of the meeting, a tri-cycle was to Soundarapandian, who got crippled due to Polio. Soundar has completed M.C.A after overcoming a lot of challenges and currently is looking for a job. We would like to strongly reiterate that this is not an activity done by Vidial, it was undertaken by the personal interest of one of our members and Smt.Ankayarkanni, teacher of Soundar. This was done in a Vidial meeting to show the the confidence, hard work of Soundar and our hopes were not dashed. The willpower Soundar radiated not only inspired but motivated everyone of us who were present there.

Vidial don't have words to express our gratitude to Kumar Sir for co-ordinating and organizing the meet in a splendid manner. We would also like to thank Pannerselvam uncle for making it to the meet despite his various commitments. We would also like to thank all the parents, who have made it to the meet and those who due to various reasons who could not attend the meet, but sent their children.

We will post the photos of the beneficiary meet soon.