UDHAYAM Activities on 8th August,2009

As a part of our week-end activity, on a fine sunny Saturday morning at 7.15AM, We seven Members of Udhayam which includes Mathi, Shanmugam, Sridhar, Suresh, Hemavathi, Aarthi and Gomathy went to the Ejipura Orphanage. There, few students were ready to go to school. Usually we will provide them with fruits and sweets. But, this time for a change we decided to provide them with Morning breakfast. So, Hema and Aarthi sponsored for Idlis. We bought them 100 IDLIs along with Sambar, Chutney and Idli Podi. There were 27 kids.



(Gomathy serving the kids with Sambar)

Above and Below:Kids waiting for their turn

As soon as I start distributing the Banana Leaf, Hema, Aarthi and Gomathy served them with Idli, Sambar and Chutney. We noticed that none of them start eating until we served all the Kids.

All of a sudden, they started their prayers to thank the Almighty and after that they started eating. I have no words to express the happiness which we felt on seeing their faces which was glowing like an 1000watts bulb. Later Kishore, Sriharsha along with two new members Palanichamy and Janson joined us.

Kids singing the prayer song

After having their breakfast, they themselves cleaned the place and formed a Queue in front of the Almighty and started singing the prayer song in both Tamil and English. Finally they concluded their prayers with the National Anthem.

Saluting after the National Anthem

From the song they sung, I noticed that they thanked the Almighty for creating them in this Wonderful World, they were asking to provide them with good shelter, health and food , asking to give them good memory power to study well, confidence to face any problem and they were thanking everyone who were supporting and helping them. I don’t know how many of us were praying daily.

Sridhar interacting with the kids

But these kids are praying daily before they leave their orphanage and before starting to have their food. Then the school going kids left and we started playing with the remaining kids. Our friend, Suresh started teaching them how to write their names in Tamil. At Last we all left the place with a feeling that it would be good if we provide them breakfast as we did today instead of sweets and snacks.

Then Shanmugam, Sridhar, Suresh, Kishore and Sriharsha and I started to Yelahanka School by 10.30AM. Actually we planned to replace the old and damaged sintex water tanks with the new ones. But, after reaching there, we came to know that some other NGOs were committed with that work.

Students having Natural Treatment for Chicken-pox at the Yelahanka School
So, we then visited the bedrooms of both the boys and girls and noted down their requirements. They used Bunker cots which has three racks. The middle racks are not having any support on its side and due to this last week one of the student fell down from the cot in his deep sleep. We immediately enquired for a local carpenter and called him to the school. There are totally 21 cots which have to be provided with side support on both the sides of the middle rack. Based on the requirements the carpenter gave us the estimation amount and it is around Rs.7500. There is no proper Lighting Facility and Fans inside the bed-room.

As already noted there in the previous postings, immediate action should be taken to repair the windows. We called one local person from an Engineering Workshop. He conveyed us that it cost around Rs.900 per window to cover with steel sheet and Rs.1250 per window with fiber material. In total there are around 40 windows to be repaired immediately. This is going to be a challenging task for us.

Damaged Windows which doesnt have frames at all

In the Mean-while 4 new members introduced by Kishore joined us at Yelahanka School. The new members are Sivaraman, Anbarasan, Rajendra Kumar and Karthikeyan.

Here too I noticed many disciplinary and punctuality things among the students. They have formed various committees like House Keeping, Sports, Cooking, Washing etc., every day by 6pm they have to assemble in the class room to give the attendance. They have a separate note for each and every committee. The students have to log their complaints which will be noted by the Correspondent and she will reply for the complaints, the next day. On priority, action will be taken. Every month, the Secretary of the school will have a look on these notebooks and complaints.

We bought some sports items like Volley-ball, foot-ball, basket-ball, Ring-ball, Skipping rope, shuttle bat with corks, cricket bats with balls, and diskers which cost around Rs.2600. They are in need of gas cylinders immediately. So we replaced 4 empty cylinders with the refilled ones which cost Rs.1400.

Playing with the Skipping rope
We have found sponsors for helping the school with infrastructure development. Now we got the hand-written statement for the infrastructure development (like Fans, Tube-Lights, Water Filter, and Windows) from the correspondent of the school. So, with these we can proceed with further activities

I thank everyone supporting Udhayam and special thanks to Hema and Aarthi for their contribution to Ejipura School.

Intouch,
Mathi.