NEELBAGH :-
The construction work at the school is nearing completion. We had decided to upgrade the old campus after the work on the new High School had been completed. The Ashraya Management monitored the work closely.
New Year was celebrated on 16th of January 2004. Mrs. Nomita Chandy,
Mrs. Surya Vaz, Mrs. Sumathi Satish and Ms. Priya David were present for the occasion. Children arranged some cultural items and gifts were later distributed to them. Our thanks to ICARE for sponsoring the event.
In the month of March, senior teachers from the school, Mr. Raghavendra,
Mr. Nagaraj, Mr. Shankar and Mrs. Varalakshmi visited Ashraya, to pay their condolences at the memorial service organized in memory of Mrs. Rama Ananth.
The Annual exams for the year 2003-2004 were conducted from 5th to 10th of April and all the students were promoted after the results were declared on 16th of April. The summer vacations started from 17th of April.
School reopened on the 17th of May for the academic year 2004-2005.
40 new children were admitted into the school and the total strength is now 233 children , with 83 children in the hostel and 150 day scholars. 11 children left the school and among the new admissions 14 were from our crèches in Bangalore and the rest were local residents.
The school bid good-bye to Mr. James Joseph, Principal of the school, who resigned in July 2004. We now have a new Principal , Mr. Roy Joseph who has joined Neelbagh school, along with his wife, Mrs. Binu Joseph, who is an English teacher. Mr. & Mrs. Joseph were earlier teaching in a school in Eritrea.
In this academic year, the school is going to send its first batch of 10th std. students for the Board Exam. As we have a small number of 13 children in the 10th, we have been tagged along with the Rayalpad Government school, for the exams.
We have applied for the recognition for our 9th and 10th standard and are awaiting the copy of the recognition, to apply for the school code, which is essential to enable the 10th students to write exams in our school. This continues to be a time consuming process and we have written to the Government of Karnataka and to the Education Secretary, Government of India, to rationalize the system.
The school has a new DTH antenna to facilitate the reception of 30 channels. This has helped our children as they get to see BBC, Discovery, Animal Planet, and Cartoon channel etc.
A volunteer, Ms. Helen Cashin, from New Zealand, has joined the school. She is a member of the AIESEC group and is teaching the children some English, music and dance. She is very enthusiastic about helping the children with all the school activities. She will be in Neelbagh for three months.
The Founder's Day was celebrated on August 13th , and we had Mrs. Andal Damodaran , President of the Indian Council of Child Welfare, as the chief guest for the cultural activities. Mr. Ramesh Kumar, MLA, Srinivaspur, was the other guest of honour and he presided over the Sports Day.
The sponsorship reports were sent to CIAI and K.C. Mahindra, who continue to help us with the sponsorship for the children at the school. We have 119 children being sponsored by CIAI and 103 children in the Nanhi Kali project, of The
K. C. Mahindra Trust. We are also grateful to ICARE for their support.
Training Programmes :
1.Mrs. Indira Swaminathan conducted a training in pre-school education on the 28th and 29th of November, for the Neelbagh primary school teachers.
2. Mrs. Jyothi Subbarao, facilitated a workshop on Conflict Resolution for the staff on the 16th of February. Priya David also attended the workshop.
The staff felt that the interaction helped them to understand each other better.
3. Dr.Uttara Vidyasagar, from DISHA, organized a workshop on " Sex Education "
for the teachers on the 27th and 28th of February. They found it to be quite an eye - opener. We hope to conduct more such workshops, this time for the children , in the coming year.
VOLUNTEERS :-
Ashraya is blessed with a dedicated team of volunteers. Each one gives generously of her time and talents to touch the lives of our children, in a very special way.
Jaya, Monica and Anuradha work with the younger children.
Vidhya, Asha, Radha, Kala, Lalitha, Sheila, Claudia, Barbara and Abigail and Jayashree are the " aunties " who help with lessons, teach craft and computer skills, read to the children and play with them.
In August we had a most enjoyable lunch, as a " thank you " for all the volunteers. It was very well attended and was an opportunity for the staff and the volunteers to meet each other and compare notes. We plan to make this a yearly event.
OBSERVATION HOME :-
A Children's Day function was held at the Observation Home on the 14th of November 2003. The Assistant Director, Mr. Munireddy, was the Chief Guest. We run a non-formal school and have a full-time teacher over there ! We have tied up with the Rotary Club for the vocational training and they have started the training in wiring and plumbing. The first batch of boys have received their certificates and will be placed in jobs with the help of the Rotary Club.
Ashraya was a part of the core-group involved with training programmes held at The National Law School, on the J.J Act 2000.
We remain as an active member of the Home Committee, managing the Observation Home for Boys, rehabilitating children in conflict with the law.
CONCLUSION :-
While we have consolidated on much of our work and can today justifiably boast of excellent facilities in all our projects, we aim to do much better. On the anvil we have a project to expand our Women's Centre and build a facility for short-term training programmes, which can also double up as a small Convention Center. We already have an acre of land near TARA and are now actively seeking donors. We are also building up the vocational training centers in Neelbagh. Our aim this year is to lay an emphasis on human resource
development and we have already put out feelers to collaborate with Aditi Mallaya School, in this endeavour.
A well-known Advertising Agency in Bangalore, is helping us to platform our Women's Centre better, so as to made this facility more accessible and known to women in need. The Neelbagh opening still has not happened because of political dynamics , out of our control, but we hope that this will be a reality in the coming year. We also aim to be more proactive in helping to streamline adoption procedure and make the process less painful and at the same time, ensure that there are adequate checks and balances in place, to see that the adoption programme in this country, remains reasonably ethical.
Our special thanks to our auditors Panth & Co. ; to our lawyer Mr. G.L. Vishwanath ; our Paediatrician Dr. N.V.S. Krishnan ; to all our members and staff, for all that they do, to keep the organization running ; to our valued partners, A.C. Sweden, WACAP, CIAI, AIAA, ICARE, The K.C. Mahindra Trust, The Paul Hamlyn Foundation and to all our generous donors, who support us, often
unasked, in such generous and concrete terms.
Nomita Chandy
Secretary, Ashraya.
BANGALORE
OCTOBER 2004