Participation in Chiguru event

Youth for Seva (YFS) has conducted event for government school children on 6th Dec 2015 in Delhi Public School, Kanakapura road. Events include: Clay modelling, memory test, Creative writing, Origami, Story telling, Yoga, Group dance/song, etc.

Thanks to the effort of teachers, children and volunteers, both Yadalam and Turahalli government schools have won 3 prizes each.

Yadalam School received prizes in group Dance, mad ads and pick & speak. Mad ads is scripted by youngest CBH volunteer Nandana. Ad is "MomPlan  - Secret of my Buddhi" [Complan: Secret of my energy].
Turahalli school received prizes in street play, dumb charades and mad ads.

Thanks to CBH volunteers helping schools to prepare for this event. Volunteers are Vasantha, Sushila, Lakshmipriya and Nandana.

Monthly update: October-2015

English course: Good progress is made in both schools
After teaching basics (mainly phonics in Level-1), we have moved to Level-2 teaching. This progress is no surprise for Turahalli School which is having dedicated and highly enthusiastic teachers. This school is mentored by our volunteer Ms Revathi.

Good news is, Yadalam School has also picked up very well with Level-1 teaching. Recently a test was conducted to evaluate learning. Out of 26 students, 25 students scored more than 50% and 15 students scored more than 90%. This is very satisfactory for us as this is not by heart method. Kudos to Ms. Vasantha for making this happen. She has used different techniques, gave assistance to teachers and paid special attention to some students.

Work of Ms Vasantha and Ms Revathi is always inspirational and backbone of Chilume activities.

Healthy diet session:
This month we had conducted a healthy diet session in Turahalli School. We had invited a specialist from Fortis Hospital to create awareness on food habits in kids. Session was lively and interactive. Kids also got gifts for listening attentively and answering the questions in end :)

Notebook Donation:
Notebook distribution used to happen every year through NGO and few donors. But this year due to some reason, schools didn't get notebooks. Based on Head mistress’s request, we arranged 350 notebooks to Turahalli School. Thanks to Ajit Gopalakrishnan for sponsorship.

Update on English teaching

We have prepared course-I material with the main focus on Phonics. This has been ruled out in 3rd to 7th standard in Turahalli school and 3rd to 5th standard in Yadalam school. This special coaching class runs everyday for all the above mentioned classes from 2.30PM to 3.30PM. These classes taken by teachers of respective school and overseen by Ms. Vasantha and Ms. Revathi from CBH. Also they pick students who needs more attention and train them.

We have mixed results after three months of teaching. We see good results in Turahalli school where kids are able to identify English letters and form word. Though small, it's good beginning and children are getting comfortable with English. But in Yadalam school, we see improvements are not satisfactory. We have analysed reasons for this failure and putting corrective action in place.

Meantime, we have received booklets for Course-II, which will have advanced phonics covering words, silent letters and basic phonic rules.

Guru Sakshat Parabrahma

ಕರ್ನಾಟಕದ ಕಾವೇರಿ ನೀರು, ಕೊಡಗಿನ ಕಾಫಿ ಬೀಜ,
ಮಂಡ್ಯದ ಸವಿ ಸಕ್ಕರೆ, ಬೆಂಗಳೂರಿನ ಹಾಲು,
ಇವೇಲ್ಲವು ಸೇರಿ ಕಾಫಿಯಾಗಿ ನಮಗೆ ಬರುವ
ತಲೆ ನೋವು ಹೇಗೆ ಹೋಗಲಾಡಿಸುತ್ತದಯೋ...
ಅದೇ ರೀತಿ ನಮ್ಮ ಪ್ರೀತಿಯ ಶಿಕ್ಷಕರಾದ ನೀವೆಲ್ಲರೂ
ನಮ್ಮಲಿರುವ ಅಜ್ಞಾನವನ್ನು ಹೋಗಲಾಡಿಸಿ
ಜ್ಞಾನವನ್ನುತುಂಬಿ ನಮ್ಮನ್ನು ಈ ದೇಶದ ಒಳ್ಳೆಯ
ಪ್ರಜೆಗಳನ್ನಾಗಿ ಮಾಡುತ್ತಿರಿ.

ತಮಗೆಲ್ಲರಿಗೂ ಶಿಕ್ಷಕರ ದಿನದ ಶುಭಾಶಯಗಳು!

Above, independence day speech from one of the student in Turahalli school :) Unlike private schools where alert parents track, guide and decide future of their kids, in these government schools future of kids solely depends on dedication of teachers. Fortunately we still have and continue to have genuine teachers working for government schools trying to build future of kids. We see god in them!

Guru brahma, guru vishnu,
Guru devo maheshwara
Guru sakshat parabrahma
Tasmai shri guruve namah!

No wonder kids were so restless till they got cake for their beloved teacher.

Bolo mere sang Jai Hind... Jai hind... Jai Hind...

We celebrated independence day with little soldiers of India. These schools where we see undying spirit and energy. Kids sung Vande mataram and Jana gana mana top of their voice, enacted freedom fighters ,danced and celebrated "Svatantra Divasa". We thought this is the best occasion to appreciate hard work put by bright kids. We selected top two ranking kids and one kid putting its best effort to study (not the top ranking) and presented them with Rechargeable study light. We hope it will help them study even during power-cuts. Study uninterrupted!

Kya style hai...

While taking photos of play, few kids came and asked to take their photos. Told them this camera can't take "straight face" photos, it needs something special. Then followed some real fun...

Turahalli Tigers

Show-stoppers

Hum kisi se kam nahi

Action scene...

Friendship handshake

1000 Watt smiles

Some games... not usual running around!

In our endeavour to build all-round development of children, Chilume supplied sport goods to Turahalli and Yadalam schools. Items include, throw ball, foot ball, badminton set, ropes, ring, volleyball, chess and net for badminton/volleyball. One last challenge to conclude sports procurement to put two poles for net which can stand for at least 6 months.

Today when volunteers visited school, it was wonderful to see kids enjoying these games. We too played few games with them and loved it. We feel, good sports infrastructure can be good attraction for kids to come to school. Currently I hardly see any importance given to sport, NGOs can chip in here and make it better.

Some snaps of fun below.

Ballpen movie

Songs from Ballpen movie are fresh and inspirational, they are close to my heart. When I was discussing songs for school function with teachers, I suggested these songs and played it for them in youtube. Headmistress, teachers and even kids liked it and included as part of program.

Unfortunately I couldn't come in time to see the performance of kids on Ballpen movie song. Learning this, kids sang this separately for me. It's touching... thank you preetiya makkale!

Link for original one is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0pLvw-9HPo

Looking for one volunteer for singing practice. Please let us know if you are interested.

Challenges in unconventional English teaching:

We are following unconventional way of English teaching. This method was not devised from education experts, but it is result of our thought process to make it simpler and acceptable to kids. "Acceptable" in the sense, it seems like kids have put filter on English or they have just given up on this crazy language.

Ignoring grammar and spelling mistakes may not seems to be wise or relating English with Kannada Kagunita may be wrong. But conventional methods or government syllabus didn't work in these schools. We need to try different methods.

We need to remember two things:
- This course is introduction and compliments government syllabus. We need to attend grammar and spelling part with regular syllabus.
- Its not by heart method, kids has to understand and learn. Course material facilitate this.

Its been 15 days days we started this course, initial results are positive. Still long way to go to see results.

Orientation for English course

Chiulme volunteers conducted orientation session with Turahalli and Yadalam government school teachers. Though few of the teachers involved in material preparation, it is necessary to provide details on
- What is the background in preparing this material
- What are the topics covered
- How to teach?
- What is that we want to achieve at end of the course and end of the year.

It was nice spirited session for 2 hours, held in Yadalam government school. After session, we took teachers to lunch to appreciate and encourage teachers effort. Few snaps of meeting are below.

English course material - Level#1

After two months of effort, we have received English course material - Level 1. First set of copies smelled like sandalwood. Its happy moment for Chilume volunteers and teachers involved in preparing this.

What was the need of this material?

- Though English class starts at first standard, understanding  even at 5th/7th found to be minimum, i.e. restricted to writing A-Z in order.

- English teaching is done in traditional by-heart method without understanding anything about it.

- Kids were clueless with simple random alphabet identification and spellings for simple words like 'school', 'book', 'pencil'.

- Worst part was, even teacher looked clueless, even though they have put their effort.

So we have designed a book:

- Which is focussed on letter pronunciation (not hi-fi phonics, but simple ones relating to Kannada kagunita akshara).

- Translating simple pronunciation to letters.

This material doesn't talk anything about grammar.

Welcome to Chilume Foundation blog!

Earlier update on our work in Uttarahalli government school was quite simple, summarize the work done in 6 weeks in few bullet points and send it across the mail. Hoping that someone reads more than "Old paper collection this weekend" :) 

Two problems with earlier approach:
- No regular update on school work
- It catered only Chartered Beverly Hills residents.

Thanks to suggestion given by Divya Ratnakar Pai, started this blog to provide regular update on work being done. This will also help us to provide regular update to non-CBH good hearts!

Below is the brief introduction of Chilume:

Chilume Foundation:
Chilume foundation is a charitable trust founded to uplift basic education level in government schools. Currently it is operational in two schools in Uttarahalli area.

Background:
In Feb 2013, as part of social responsibility initiative, few residents of CBH have taken up a task to help neighboring schools. Funds are collected from selling news paper of CBH residents and donation. These funds are used for donating water filter, computers, sponsoring education trips and other necessities of schools. Volunteers also took class in English and other subjects. As the time passed, we felt these activities are not contributing much in bringing up quality of education or make difference in kids growth. Hence volunteers’ brain stormed and identified need of focused effort to bring up education level and formal organization to drive this effort.

During conversation with founder of “Sikshana” founder ES Ramamurthy, we understood approximately 60% of the 7th standard students can’t do 2nd standard arithmetic and 35% of the students can’t read 2nd standard Kannada. And effort should be put in to bring up this to create strong foundation for students.

Goals of Chilume Foundation:
• Bringing up basic education level
• Recognize bright students and encourage them
• Provide conducive learning environment

Execution Plan:
• Identify students who don’t meet minimum expectation as explained above.
• One month of dedicated class on subject from the appointed teacher from Chilume.
• Evaluate improvements and plan for next class.

Main expenditures of Trust:
• Salary of teacher 
• Teaching material
• Education trips
• Awards for good students.

Trustees:
Rajendra Baniyavar
Vinay Balakrishnan
Bindu Nair

Contact Details:
e-Mail: chilume.foundation@gmail.com