We, Natalie Sridhar who has completed her bachelors in psychology from the US, Mohammed Fazil an ex-Cisco employee, and Deepa Mahesh, an ex-Target employee are currently Teach for India fellows, teaching Grades three and four at the Kadugodi Govternment School. We have been in this system for the last four months and realise there are many things that the school needs support with.
Infrastructure needs
Drinking Water: Water supply is an issue because the pump for the borewell keeps going out of order. The school also needs a water purifying system to make the water drinkable for the kids.
Toilets: We have toilets, but because of issues with the water pump they are not useable. The children, even the girls, use the outdoors!
Desks and chairs: Grades three through five need desks and benches. Lower grade kids need single mats as it gets cold during the winter and kids tend to fall sick very easily because of this. Monsoon season makes it worse for the kids to be sitting on the floor.
Many of the children sit on the cold ground without mats. Pic: Deepa Mahesh
Special-ed teachers/volunteers
We have about eight children in the school who are special needs kids. We don’t have the right staff with the right training to support these kids. We are looking for volunteers or organisations that can help us with supporting the needs for these special kids.
Child counsellor
We have kids who are very disruptive and abusive and get into constant physical fights. A lot of time in class is spent trying to keep it safe. A few of these kids can go a long way with some support and counselling.
Library, books and book shelves
We are also setting up a library for primary kids and are expecting our first set of books from Pratham very soon. We are looking for more books (for beginners, and up to 10 years) and book shelves for the library.
Classroom supplies
White boards and projectors for at least three classrooms. We use technology in the classrooms and have seen that it works very well with our kids, as visual aids breaks the communication barrier. It also helps us be more productive in class.
Soccer team
We are tying up with Just for Kicks to start a school soccer program and have sponsorship for two team right now. We have one more enthusiastic team waiting for sponsorship.
Snapshots from the school. Pic: Deepa Mahesh
Revamp of the computer lab
We have a computer lab with about five working computers. We are looking for volunteers to teach the kids computers and also manage the lab.
As we continue to work on fixing some of these problems, we are also looking for support. Reach out to me at deepa.mahesh2015@teachforindia.org in case you/your organisation can help with any of the above.
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It would have been helpful if you had set up a donation button before posting this appeal! That’s Internet Marketing 101. You’ve provided an email address but I (and maybe others like me) don’t want to get into an email exchange – we just want to make a monetary donation and move on.
The email address can be provided for people who want to volunteer time / resources and establish a deeper relationship – but not everyone wants to do that.
Thanks, Rohit and useful feedback.
Here is the link to make donations : http://teachforindia.org/donate/give-instantly
and in the selection “Would you like to designate this for a particular region or fellow?*:” – Please select “specific fellow” and add any of the following names so the funds reach us.
1. Deepa Mahesh
2. Natalie Sridhar
3. Mohammed Fazil
Thanks again. Much appreciated.