With the schools reopening on Nov 1st, our regular work with schools have started. Computer teachers are once again going to their schools. Asha Kanini trainers have started the new project of training all government school teachers in Thiruvallur District.
This report is written by Rajaraman Krishnan, Asha Chennai Coordinator. With the school reopening in Tamilnadu on Nov 1st, many of our mini-schools wound down. Some mini-schools are still continuing thanks to the passion of these teachers. Nutrition support through Project Arogyam is also continuing in 6 schools.
This report is written by Rajaraman Krishnan, Asha Chennai Coordinator. Oral assessments were once again conducted at our mini-schools just before they close in October 2021.
Mini-schools closed down as the regular schools once again resumed on Nov 1st 2021. We conducted a series of interviews with teachers and students from mini-schools to document the work of these mini-schools.
Our volunteer Rajaram visited the mini-schools and libraries run under Project Thulasi on Sept 3rd and 4th.
Project Arogyam continues to provide nutrition for children in 16 of our mini-schools spread across our Sangamam, Pearl and Thulasi schools.
Stationery items were distributed to all our mini-school children in June/July of 2021. They were procured at each project and distributed to all the mini-schools. The notebooks given were dependent on the class of the chidlren
Rajaram visited most of the mini-schools running under Project Sangamam during mutliple trips in June-July 2021. He was also accompanied by our Maths trainer and Science content expert during these trips.
Asha once again started our mini-schools after the extended summer closure due to the second wave of Covid. The first mini-schools once again started in mid June 2021 and by end of July most of the 60+ mini-schools have opened again.
Academic Year 2020-21 was a complete wash-out. The schools remained closed the entire year. Asha’s Mini-schools could continue the education for 1800 students the whole year. It was a year of struggles and innovation in our mini-school. Read our detailed report for all the information.
The teacher reports are all here: Ariyappkam – Thenmozhi Elanthapatti – saraswathidevi Kamagaram – Nithya Kannigaipair – Santhameena Nandhimangalam – Ramya Nandhivaram – Philomena Old Panapakkam – Kumari Old Thirupachur – Iswarya Pandur – Rajkumari Thirukovilur – Sathya TV Pet – Jayalakshmi
Asha Chennai conducted oral assessments at all the mini-schools we were running in Nov 2020 with specific goal of understanding the effectiveness of our mini-schools in stopping the slide in education.
Rajaram, the steward for Project Sangamam visited mini-schools in mid-April. Here is a detailed report about our mini-school at Pondhavakkam which he visited.
John Crane funds Pravartak, a Section 8 company launched by IIT Madras to take Asha Kanini to all schools in Thiruvallur District.
Our coordinator Rajaraman wrote an article on school closures that was published by The Hindu Open Page.
ACSYS Investments has chosen to fund Project Poorna Vidhya as part of their CSR initiative.
Rajaram visited more Sangamam mini-school in Thiruvallur and also the Poorna Vidhya mini-schools in Guduvancheri in Dec 2020. Our Maths trainer Mrs. Meena Suresh also accompanied him in visiting some of the mini-schools.
Two of Asha Chennai’s volunteers Bhaskar and Rajaram visited the Project Pearl mini-schools and libraries on November 19th and 20th.
Core Solution Inc. donated 12 computers to Asha to be given to deserving students. The computers were donated on 23rd Nov to students in desperate need of a computer because of the remote classes during these pandemic times.
The Hindu wrote a detailed article on Asha Chennai’s mini-schools.
With several restrictions placed on government schools, they are not able to open to children. Further teaching through video conference is not a possibility in these schools. Asha Chennai has created contents for continuing the education under these restrictions.
Covid imposed restrictions on travel. Here is the first detailed site-visit report about the mini-schools by a volunteer. Rajaram visited these schools on Sept 17th and 18th, 2020.
With the restrictions imposed by Covid, Asha Chennai is continuing the work of educating the Narikorava colony children through hybrid strategies.
With our mini-schools taking on more responsibilities towards teaching the textbook contents, the mini-schools needed a blackboard. We painted them at 12 mini-schools to start with.
Asha Chennai is continuing to run mini-schools. With lowering concerns about Covid we have been able to start 45+ mini-schools. With schools still not open, mini-schools are teaching the contents of their textbooks as well.
Asha Chennai is continuing to run mini-schools. Due to greater demand from the communities, we are now running more mini-schools (24 mini-schools at the end of August).
June 2020: Teachers haven’t been able to do their usual work at schools ever since the schools closed in mid-March. Asha Chennai has been using their time productively to enhance our content, provide them training, etc.
June 2020: As the schools remain shut down thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic, Asha Chennai is running mini-schools in the villages that we support where we also have local teachers.
Hyundai Glovis that supports our Project Sangamam in Thiruvallur district has donated 100 used computers to be given to the schools we support.
We painted the blackboard at over 30 schools belonging to Project Sangamam during Feb 2020..
