Greetings! The sixth OPEN-Rasika fundraiser concert is coming up on May 7 at Dominion HS in Sterling, VA. We are nearly sold out, so please call Kumar at (703)327-6907 immediately for tickets. We look forward to seeing you at the concert.
OPEN is working with SPEAK EASY in Chennai to offer English classes to students of General Cariappa Higher Secondary School, Saligramam, Chennai. 600 students from Classes 6-11 will benefit through this program. Each student will get 48 hrs of English coaching. Classroom training will be reinforced with customized worksheets for practice at home. 5 teachers from the school have been identified for training on continuing this program in the future. The program will start June 2011.
Together with IGNITE, we held a counseling session for the Educate A Child (EAC) program for degree/diploma students on March 11, 2011. More than 80 students attended. Mr. Pugazhendhi, Head of Asia Pacific Banking, Wipro, spoke. He owes his rise to hard work and education. He stressed the importance of hard work, and advised the students to use the EAC program as a launching pad for their lives. Arulanandam, a former student of the IGNITE program, also addressed the students. He graduated in 2004 and eventually joined Siemens. He has been deputed to the US for 4 years, and is a source of inspiration to the other students. We disbursed Rs 3.13L in scholarships during this event. Please expect an EAC update in May 2011.
OPEN is partnering with Pudiyador to open a new center for Elementary students living near Saligramam, Chennai. Pudiyador will provide a safe, interactive, fun and hands-on learning environment. Our programs for the children will include:
after-school academic help
extracurricular activities that provide exposure to art, theater, music, dance, and sports
character building through interactions with various role-models, story-telling and theater workshops; individual counseling; awareness about social and environmental issues, etc.
We continue our support of Siragu Montessori School at Avadi, a unit of the Suyam Trust. The school was started especially for children of beggars. This community never had any real opportunities for breaking out of their situation. OPEN has been funding Siragu with $2200/month towards their operational expenses.
We are partnering with Santosh Charity in Bangalore to support destitute and orphaned children in a home environment where they are nurtured and educated, equipping them for the future. The Santosh Children's Home houses forty children (including 5 girls) aged between 4 and 15 years from various cultural backgrounds. The trust is building a school for needy children from the villages nearby. Currently, with the help of 2 sponsors, we support 4 students. We will be raising the sponsorship to 6 students starting next year.
We continue to provide infrastructure support to our long standing partner, the Jaigopal Garodia Foundation schools. In the past we were supporting their schools in urban and rural Chennai. Now we have added one of their Bangalore schools, Jaigopal Garodia Rashtrotthana Vidya Kendra in Ramamurthy Nagar, Bangalore. This school provides underprivileged children with quality education. We contributed $8000 last quarter for completing the flooring and tiles for 9 class rooms. We continue the quarterly contribution of $3000 for benches and desks to various Garodia schools in Chennai.
As always, our ability to fund these projects depends on your generosity. We request that (tax-deductible) contributions payable to OPEN Inc. be sent to Kumar or Ramprasad at:
Kumar Thiagarajan, 25470 Gimbel Dr, South Riding, VA 20547
Ramprasad Santhanakrishnan, 810 Graywyck Dr, Seven Fields, PA 16046
If you would like your contribution to go towards the Educate a Child program, please mention it on your check memo section.
Tax-deductible contributions may be sent to Sriram or Arvind in India in favor of OPEN India Charitable Trust: