Our hearts are broken. The children at Sandy Hook could have been ours. They are ours. But we must go on.
In our journey we continue to look for strong passionate people who share in our dreams for India’s children. Examples are Mrs. Sharadha Manee, headmistress of the Ganapathy Iyer Girls’ Higher Secondary school in Chennai; Ms. Asha Ashok, correspondent of the Jaigopal Rashtrotthana Vidyalaya, Bangalore; and Mr. ManickamNarayanan, founder and principal of Pudiyador. This is not to forget our old friends from IGNITE, who continue to be heavily involved in student selection and counseling. This focus on partners has been very important as we rely on them to execute our vision – and if they share our vision, so much the better.
Our scholarship program for Polytechnic and College students continues, in partnership with IGNITE. We funded the education of 80 children at a cost of र.6,00,000. As a reminder, individual students may be supported through our Educate A Child program. Recent graduates of this program are P. Kanaga and M. Imran Khan, who completed a diploma in Civil Engineering and found jobs with VGN at a salary of र.10,000 per month.
We continued our support for Somasundaram school, located at Sivagangai, Tamil Nadu. It has about 90 students and currently has 4 teachers who are paid by the government. OPEN supports the school by contributing र.8,000/quarter for private teachers for English and Computer classes.
Single Teacher School - If children cannot go to school, then the school goes to the children, desires Swami Vivekananda. OPEN has been supporting the single teacher program in two villages for the last two years and after a field visit decided to increase to schools in five villages. We provided $3,275 to this program for this year.
Single Teacher Program
We continue support for the Hope Foundation in the Kannagi Nagar slum area near OMR, Chennai. The slum area predominantly consists of people from the fishing community and others who are economically backward. The school operates up to Class V and does not collect fees from students. The medium of instruction is English. OPEN contributed र.70,000 for classroom construction. In this effort, OPEN is partnering with Mr. Suresh of Isha Homes.
We continue our support for Santosh Charity, a home for about 30 destitute children in Bangalore. OPEN supports 6 students this year for their educational and their living expenses and contributed र.90,000 for Q3 and Q4.
Our support for scholarships at the Jaigopal Rastrotthana Vidyala in Bangalore continues, with a total of $3,700 spent for tuition, uniforms and books for 25 students.
We provided र.1,50,000 towards construction of toilets at the Anjanadri Government school, a Kannada medium Government school in Bangalore. The toilets were operational in Q3 2012.
Anjanadri School
We just started collaborating with a new partner – Vidyarambam. Mr. Ranganathan of Vidyarambamhas pioneeredspoken English classes in multiple villages in rural Tamil Nadu. They focus on children from classes 5-8. The English classes are part of the curriculum and not extra-curricular. OPEN will be funding Vidyarambam starting in 2013 and it appears that Mr. Ranganathan is the kind of strong visionary partner that we typically have success with.
OPEN Needs You
OPEN has been registered as a non-profit charitable foundation in India and the U.S. Contributions in both countries are tax-deductible. 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 Rajesh at:
Kumar Thiagarajan, 25470 Gimbel Dr, South Riding, VA 20547
Rajesh Ramadoss, 38 Ocean St, Millburn, NJ 07041
If you would like your contribution to go towards the Educate a Child program, please mention it in your check memo section.
Tax-deductible contributions may be sent to Sriram or Arvind in India in favor of OPEN India Charitable Trust: