Malleswaram Shishu Vihar school: OPEN began partnering with this school from 2011. The annual operational deficit is covered by OPEN. This mainly goes towards teachers' salaries. There are a total of about 150 students in classes up to 10th standard. Cost: $2,180. Apart from this, we provided scholarships for 12 students towards tuition fees/books. Cost: $2,100.
Adarsha Vidyalaya: at Utavali Village, Wada, Maharashtra state, provides education from 5th standard till SSLC to approx 550 Adivasi (tribals) students in the nearby villages.This is the only school providing higher secondary education in the entire area. OPEN funded construction of 2 classrooms, one for a Science lab and the other for a Computer center. This project is completed and is in use. Cost: INR 2,00,000 (USD $4,000).
Anjanadri High School: located near Carmelaram Post Office in Doddakanneli, Bangalore, is a Government-aided Kannada medium school with approximately 200 children in classes 8th – 10th. Government aid pays salaries for 8 teachers and 2 non-teaching staff. The school is dependent on donations for all other expenses and for infrastructure. This school badly needed good toilets. OPEN funded INR 1,50,000 out of the total expense of INR 3,80,000, and other donors funded the rest. The toilets were inaugurated for use in June 2012.
OPEN is 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 about thirty children between 4 and 15 years of age, from various cultural backgrounds. OPEN is providing continued support with the help of 3 individual sponsors, and 1-1 matching from OPEN funds, for a total of 6 students. We are donating INR 45,000 per Quarter for sponsoring these 6 children’s education/boarding/lodging.
Our flagship program Educate A Child (EAC) continues to support more students in Polytechnic, Engineering, and 3-year Degree colleges, with the help of our partners from the IGNITE trust. We conducted counseling for accepting new students in 2012 during Aug ‘12 and also paid fees for existing students. OPEN funded INR 6,00,000 for this program. Here is the data for 2012 - New students in 2012 : 77. Out of which, Polytechnic - 42, 3 year degree - 29, Engineering 4. Also 22 students from 2011 batch, 15 from 2010 batch & 1 student from 2009 batch were paid during this event. A total of 100 students were paid and the cost is INR 8,54,215.
The Pudiyador center at General Cariappa school, Saligramam, Chennai has been operating since 2011 with about 25 students (classes 1 to 6) visiting the center on a daily basis. OPEN supports the center with operational expenses and infrastructure development. OPEN spent INR 29,890/- for electrical fixtures and wiring in the computer class room and it is used by a group called Bhoomi to offer computer classes on Sundays. We also paid the electricity bill for the computer class room; cost : INR 1,318.
Somasundaram school, located at Siravayal, Kallal Taluk, Sivagangai, Tamil Nadu, has classes from 1 - 8. They have about 90 students and currently have 4 teachers who are paid by the Government. In 2012, we paid for the salary of an additional staff member to teach English and Computer Classes. Cost: INR 2,000/Month for 10 months.
OPEN funded $2750 for school library cupboards at Jaigopal Garodia Girls high school, Saidapet , Chennai. We also funded Jaigopal Garodia Rashtrotthana Vidya Kendra in Ramamurthy Nagar, Bangalore, for 96 benches benefiting 192 students at a total cost of $5,500. We additionally paid for school fees/notebooks/uniforms for 25 students at a cost of $3,700.
Siragu – We are continuing our funding of $2200 per month to Siragu for their monthly operational expenses. Here is an update for 2012…
ICONOWRITE is the word art and Siragu is the first school in the World that brought Iconowrite into the curriculum as a separate syllabus. Children of Siragu and Bharathamatha School run by Suyam are practising this word art.
The first child who was rescued from begging on road in the year 1999 & a child rescued from child labor, studied at Siragu School from KG to 8th grade, wrote IGSCE examinations and studied 10th grade through NIOS (National Institute of Open Schooling). Currently they are studying 11th grade in a private matriculation school under scholarship. These two students are now selected for FIIT-JEE course to opt for IIT-JEE.
Siragu is stepping into 10th Academic year as 100% free school from June'12.
Completed new building within Siragu complex.
Ganapathy Iyer Girls’ High School, located in Gopalapuram, Chennai, is a Government-aided school run by the Gopalapuram Educational Society. OPEN continued its scholarship program at this school by funding scholarships for 100 under-privileged students for books/Fees. We additionally funded Uniforms/shoes for 100 students. The total cost of this program is $5,800. This school secured 100% result in the Std. X public examination held in the month of April 2012. 52 girls appeared for the examination. The school topper was Tamilarasi of English Medium, who scored 463 out of 500 maximum possible marks. The second rank holder was D.Pragathy of English Medium with 449 out of 500; and B.Sowmya of English Medium was third in the school, with 448 out of 500. Out of 52 girls, 14 girls scored above 400 marks and 39 girls scored above 300 marks.
Single Teacher School (STS)- “If children cannot go to school, then the school goes to the children” – claims Swami Vivekananda. The Rural Development Society is the implementing agency of this unique project in several villages of Thiruvallur District, TN. Karthik S, OPEN board member, visited Kizhanur and Melakondaiyar villages where OPEN adopted two single teacher class rooms. He reported that this is a well-structured program that takes education to the next level for people living in rural areas. STS mainly focuses on Tamil/Indian culture, moral science, Tamil literature, slokas, story telling etc. The attrition rate of teachers is close to zero, as they are all employed from the same village with a basic education of up to 10th grade. They have five-day residential program to train their teachers every 6 months. Based on Karthik’s report we decided to support 3 more schools in addition to the existing 2 schools. Total cost for adopting 5 STS in 5 villages is INR 1,80,000. The three new schools are from the following villages:
