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| - | <h2>Updates</h2> | ||
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| - | <li class="here"><a href="doku.php?id=welcome:updates"><span>2010</span></a></li> | ||
| - | <li><a href="doku.php?id=welcome:newsletter:late_2009"><span>Late 2009</span></a></li> | ||
| - | <li><a href="doku.php?id=welcome:newsletter:early_2009"><span>Early 2009</span></a></li> | ||
| - | <li><a href="doku.php?id=welcome:newsletter:2008"><span>2008</span></a></li> | ||
| - | <li><a href="doku.php?id=welcome:newsletter:2007"><span>2007</span></a></li> | ||
| - | <li><a href="doku.php?id=welcome:newsletter:2006"><span>2006</span></a></li> | ||
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| - | <h1 class="large">February 14, 2010: A Mid-Month Residential Program Debriefing</h1> | ||
| - | <p>Exams are finally over! After weeks of cramming for exams, our kids are delighted to have some free time on their hands. During the past few days, we made a trip to Empress Gardens, a park here in town (which now boasts lots of new swings and monkey bars) and spent a lot of time at home playing soccer and Frisbee. The rest of the kids' time is filled with doing arts & crafts, working on civics projects and responding to penpal requests. The whole gang enjoyed watching a movie yesterday, and can’t wait until tonight’s stargazing session (organized by a neighbor’s friend) during which they will be learning more about planets and the universe!</p> | ||
| - | <h1 class="large">February 12, 2010: And then there were 12!</h1> | ||
| - | <p>Many of you have already read about our newest family member: Poonam, a six-year old girl who joined the AIC family just a couple of days ago. All of us are extremely excited about this recent development! Poonam is fascinated by all the new things in her life, and we are all having fun watching her discover everything around the house. Our other children are doing a great job in showing Poonam the ropes and teaching her some everyday English phrases. Most importantly, they are being very patient with their new little sister, who (as is the case with all of the children) occasionally finds it challenging adjusting to the new environment. We are sure that smart little Poonam will adapt quickly to her new life and are looking forward to keeping you posted on her progress!</p> | ||
| - | <h1>January 2010: The new year has hit the ground running!</h1> | ||
| - | <p><em><b>Health Outreach Program: A Space of its Own</b></em> | ||
| - | <p>At the beginning of this month, we interviewed several women for the position of Assistant Social Worker and ended up hiring two part-time employees to assist our Health Outreach Coordinator Rashmi with everyday work at our Health Centre. Anita and Lakshmi, our new AIC team members, have been doing a great job so far and have learned the ropes quickly. They spend their days helping Rashmi out during counseling hours, taking patients to hospitals, supervising our vocational training sessions and making visits to the <em>busti</em> (slum) to make sure all patients are well taken care of. Both of them have done an impressive job so far, working extra shifts and spending many hours waiting in hospitals with our patients. Meanwhile, Rashmi is glad to have the extra help – given the rapid expansion of our Health Program, it has become impossible for one person to do all the work!</p> | ||
| - | <p>With the move of our Education Outreach Program to the new Education Centre (see below) at the beginning of the month, we finally have some much-needed vacant space for the Health Outreach Program back at the old Centre. Needless to say, our employees as well as all members of our community are thrilled about this recent development! We are planning on organizing a number of programs and activities at the new Health Centre, which boasts two large rooms on separate floors <em>- all for our health and community projects!</em> This is a pretty major upgrade, considering the only dedicated Health office space we had previously was a (literally) closet-sized room.</p> | ||
| - | <p>Within the next few weeks, we’ll be organizing health-screening camps and adult literacy classes as well as self-help group meetings. Due to the high demand for vocational training programs, the enlarged Health Centre is already in use: we are currently holding a month-long motorcycle repairing class for teenage boys and men in <a href="http://www.ashrayainitiative.org/doku.php?id=context:denotified_tribes">our community.</a> Also worth noting: the training program as well as materials, snacks, lunch and the teachers’ salary are fully funded by the <a href="http://www.bankofbaroda.com/">Bank of Baroda</a>. We hope to continue our partnership with the <a href="http://www.bankofbaroda.com/">Bank of Baroda</a> so as to be able to offer further vocational training programs to our community members.</p> | ||
| - | <p>As for medical treatments and health work, this month was business as usual: babies born, minor injuries and diseases treated, ongoing screening and check-ups, surgery for one of our outreach boys, eye exams, domestic and alcohol abuse counseling, etc. Volunteer Nikita spent a few days at the Health Centre and accompanied Lakshmi and Anita to hospitals with our patients. She was amazed by the work that is being done in our health program and commented on how impressed she was by Lakshmi and Anita’s energy and dedication. Two weeks ago, Dr. Thore of the Pune Immunization Centre visited us at our Health Centre in Yerawada and was in awe of our programs and facilities. Following his visit, he called to promise free immunizations for all of the children in our slums as well as a large de-worming camp for the entire community. We are excited about Dr. Thore’s offer and can’t wait to send you updates and photos of the immunization camp (to be held within the next two months)!</p> | ||
| - | <p>Lastly, this month, we celebrated <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makar_Sankranti"><em>Sankranti</em> </a>with members of our community, the children at our Outreach Centre and with kids, volunteers and staff members at the home. On January 14, everyone exchanged <em>tilgul</em> (multi-colored sweets made from sugar and sesame seeds) as tokens of goodwill. The underlying thought in the exchange of these sweets is to promise each other to remain friends instead of fighting or speaking bad words to each other. For the women in our community, <em>Sankranti</em> is a special festival as it comes with a celebration called <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haldi_Kumkum"><em>Haldi Kumkum</em></a>. We invited all married women to our centre, handed out gifts (kitchen utensils) as well as <em>tilgul</em> and honored all married women with speeches. Besides the roughly sixty(!) women who showed up at the Centre, we were also able to welcome three representatives from the Pune Municipal Corporation, who promised to develop a housing scheme for our slum population. Needless to say, our women were thrilled about the good news and are looking forward to the initiation of the housing project (which will hopefully provide needy families with a accommodation outside the slum in a few years).</p> | ||
| - | <p><b><em>Education Outreach Program: The Story of our new Education Centre</em></b> | ||
| - | <p>At the beginning of this month, our long-standing dream of moving to a bigger Education Outreach Centre became reality! After months of searching for a building that would suit our needs, we found one just five minutes away from our existing centre. <img class="border imageleft" src="/image/movingday1.jpg" alt="moving into the new centre"> | ||
| - | While we started some classes at the new centre at the beginning of January, we did not move all our education outreach activities to the new centre until January 13. Moving day was crazy, to say the least! Volunteers, home directors and staff members spent many hours cleaning and setting up the new centre. In addition, many of the older boys in our Education Program were extremely helpful; they worked all day to move heavy furniture, kitchenware and whiteboards. Our teachers did not shy away from hard work either – all of them carried bags of school supplies from the existing centre <img class="border imageright" src="/image/movingday2.jpg" alt="moving into the new centre">to our new building and rapidly set up their new classrooms. Our work definitely paid off! We are all proud of the beautiful space we created in our new building. Volunteers are in the process of painting murals on the walls, our teachers have decorated classrooms with educational posters and kids’ artwork, and caretaker Anita is excited about the well-equipped kitchen at the new centre. Be sure to <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/ashrayainitiative/PhotoUpdateJanuary2010LotsOfFunAtOurBrandNewEducationOutreachCentre#">check out our photo albums</a> for shots of moving day and the new centre!</p> | ||
| - | <p>Besides moving to the new centre, there were many other things that kept us busy in January. To start the new year off on the right foot, our children and teachers, with the help of Swati and Rashmi, arranged a New Year's party for the thirty children at a nearby home for disabled children. The party, complete with singing, dancing, snacks, gifts, and a performance by our talented dancers, was immensely enjoyed by all. The kids in our Education Program, though they live on the streets and in the slums themselves, were so proud to be able to do something for others to spread joy and goodwill for the new year.</p> | ||
| - | <img class="border imageleft" src="/image/lkg1.jpg" alt="kindergarten class"> | ||
| - | <p>As there is never a dull moment around here, a few days later we hired two new teachers and started tutoring eighteen nursery school kids (Upper/Lower Kindergarten, as they call it here in India) two hours per day. We submitted applications for admission at Nagarvala School for our three year olds and are hoping that they will all pass entrance interviews at the beginning of February. Our volunteers and teachers have all worked hard to prepare the children n for these challenging interviews – kindergarten in India is extremely competitive! As for the older ones (4-5 years old), we are hoping to also enroll them in Nagarvala School and are waiting to hear back from the admissions team there. Overall, it’s been wonderful having so many new faces at the centre during tuition time! The little ones certainly fill the space with liveliness and keep teachers as well as volunteers on their toes at all times.</p> | ||
| - | <p><img class="border imagecenter" src="/image/lkg3.jpg" alt="pretending to be lions"> | ||
| - | <p>We continue to be extremely impressed by the hard work of our dedicated teachers in our Education Outreach Program. The nursery school teachers, who started working for AIC just a few weeks back,handle the nursery children with much affection and, on top of that, manage to keep everyone focused throughout tuition time. Keep in mind that we are talking about a group of almost twenty small children! Our teachers who teach the older children in our program are doing an equally remarkable job; they have been spending many hours preparing their children for the upcoming exams and have been pulling extra shifts on weekends and holidays. In addition to the hours spent teaching the kids, our teachers (in tandem with our volunteers) were also involved in decorating the Centre and worked extremely hard to create a beautiful space. On this note: a big <b>thank you</b> to all our teachers – we couldn’t succeed without you!</p> | ||
| - | <p>On January 21, we had birthday celebration at our new centre! Poonam Waghri celebrated her sixth birthday with teachers, volunteers and children from our Residential and Education Outreach Programs. As is the case with many of our incoming children, we have no birth certificate or other documents for Poonam. Since birthdays are big celebrations here at AIC, we let everyone choose a birth date. Poonam, who never had a chance to celebrate her birthdays before coming to our home, was quick to decide she wanted her birthday to be the very next day!</p> | ||
| - | <h1>January 2010: Ringing in the New Year...</h1> | ||
| - | <p>...with a brand new Education Outreach centre!</p> | ||
| - | <embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://picasaweb.google.com/s/c/bin/slideshow.swf" width="400" height="267" flashvars="host=picasaweb.google.com&captions=1&hl=en_US&feat=flashalbum&RGB=0x000000&feed=http%3A%2F%2Fpicasaweb.google.com%2Fdata%2Ffeed%2Fapi%2Fuser%2Fashrayainitiative%2Falbumid%2F5429439623444949649%3Falt%3Drss%26kind%3Dphoto%26hl%3Den_US" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer"></embed> | ||
| - | <p><h1 class="large">January 2010: Residential Happenings</h1> | ||
| - | <p>Winter vacation meant all sorts of fun for the AIC family - murals, babies, soccer, Global Affairs, new kittens, hyper children, track suits from Austria, trips to Mahindra College...loads of excitement! | ||
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| - | <i>[Meanwhile, after the first few days of winter vacation, we adults in the house passed our time counting down the days until school started again!]</i> </p> | ||
| - | <p>Exams are rapidly approaching!<i> (cue ominous music)</i> After quite some time off during the holiday season, the kids are studying hard and staying up late to memorize their ‘portions’. We currently have six volunteers here at the home, all of whom are busy preparing worksheets and ‘mock exams’ for the kids in our residential program. Many of the kids have been getting great scores on their mock exams, and Julia didi took all the high scorers out for dinner and ice cream. At school, the kids have been busy preparing for exams and attending school picnics as well as sports events. Tushar and Sonali were selected to represent their class at a citywide sports day and participated in dozens of competitions. Despite many hours spent studying, the kids still find time to go to soccer practice – none of the kids would want to miss out on their favorite extracurricular activity!</p> | ||
| - | <embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://picasaweb.google.com/s/c/bin/slideshow.swf" width="400" height="267" flashvars="host=picasaweb.google.com&captions=1&hl=en_US&feat=flashalbum&RGB=0x000000&feed=http%3A%2F%2Fpicasaweb.google.com%2Fdata%2Ffeed%2Fapi%2Fuser%2Fashrayainitiative%2Falbumid%2F5429443199619146577%3Falt%3Drss%26kind%3Dphoto%26hl%3Den_US" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer"></embed> | ||
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