It was a novelty to have children back in school full time from February!
Looking back over the last two difficult and unusual years, one realises that good teamwork, community spirit and all your support have unleashed our creativity and resilience to the maximum. In fact, many new projects have sprouted in Thulir!
Training of government appointed Illam Thedi Kalvi volunteers.
“I never knew multiplication could be taught so interestingly!” “Why was I never taught Maths this way?” “Can we come every day to your school?” These were the enthusiastic refrains we heard during the one-day training workshops we conducted every fortnight for the government appointed village volunteer teachers under the Illam Thedi Kalvi (education at your doorstep) scheme.
The Illam Thedi Kalvi scheme has been launched by the Tamil Nadu Government to help children catch up after the gap in their schooling due to the lockdowns. Under this scheme they have appointed a few volunteers (mostly recent graduates) in every village to provide supplementary and bridge classes to a specified number of children from their neighbourhood every evening. Classes are conducted in front of their houses in the village. Unfortunately, most of these volunteers have no prior teaching experience and found it hard to teach a multi level, multi graded group of students!
We talked to the Chief Educational Officer of Dharmapuri and offered to train these volunteers at Thulir so that they would be better equipped to give the children in our villages their required educational support. The response, both from the volunteers themselves and the headmasters of the local government schools, has been very positive. Volunteers from Palakuttai, Velanur, Nammankadu and Sittilingi villages now attend a full day workshop at Thulir school once in two weeks. We have also started a WhatsApp group for these teachers so that materials could be shared easily and continuous guidance could be provided.
Interactions with government schools in the valley
Our discussions on how to continue and maintain our interactions with government school children during the lockdown spurred us on to re-establish our contacts with the government schools in the valley. One cannot remain an island when one is in a community like this.
We visited all the government schools in the valley, interacted with their teachers and headmasters and gave them some library materials. This is the first step towards further programmes in these schools in the future.
Classes in government schools
To begin with, we selected two government schools, in Nammankadu and Palakuttai, for regular interactions. Two teachers from Thulir go one afternoon a week to each of these schools and conduct classes for the children there.
Each of these schools have around 50 children from class 1 to 5 with one teacher and a headmistress. Our sessions include songs, stories, maths and science activities.
Daily Evening class in Palakuttai village
Suresh has started taking classes every day in his village, Palakuttai. The number of children attending varies, but there is a constant group of 12 to 15 children coming every evening. The confidence that these children have gained when it comes to learning is visible and palpable, when compared to the other children in the govt school there. Suresh also brought his students to Thulir school for a day.
Working with children with developmental delays
Ambika has rejoined Thulir to work with children with developmental delays. She attended two week-long training programmes at the Developmental Paediatrics Department in CMC Vellore. The doctors in the department were amazed at Ambika’s training in Thulir and the way she was handling the children’ s activities. They have expressed an interest in training her more and in continuing interactions with Thulir in the future. She has interacted with and taught two such children in school this year apart from her own daughter. Lakshmi, an Educational Psychology student from Vellore, acts as an interpreter between the doctors and Ambika and helps the doctors remotely guide Ambika in her work.
Scholarship Fund
Many students from Sittilingi are now going outside the valley to pursue higher studies. Higher education fees are now quite steep and far beyond the abilities of their families. So we have started a scholarship fund to provide some initial assistance to a few deserving students each year. We helped two students from Sittilingi to pursue BSc nursing and one student to pursue Engineering in NIT, Trichy.
Folk song and dance workshop
Multiplication tables sung enthusiastically accompanied by the rhythm of the parai (traditional drums) reverberated around the school. Thiru. Manimaran conducted a week-long folk song and dance workshop in Thulir. Observing that children learnt very well through songs and chants, we requested him to set the multiplication tables to music. He did so, and the result was a huge success!
Anandayana Run
Attending a public gathering after 2 years of restraints seemed a novel and very welcome experience! Suresh and Jyoti took a group of 18 children from Palakuttai and Sittilingi to run 5km in the inclusive event, Anandayana, organised by Runner’s High. Getting to meet and mingle with differently able and differently privileged children from various schools was a great learning experience.
Bringing children to school
The private mini-bus which operates in our valley, and which many children used to come to school, stopped operating in March and April. But parents took the initiative to share bikes or get help and somehow brought children to school in spite of physical and financial hardships.
Glimpses from the campus
We have been able to bounce back with renewed vigour only because of the resilience among children, teachers and others from the community. And because of your continued support.
Let’s keep this spirit of giving and sharing alive and healthy!
Thank you!