A Centre for Learning at Sittilingi Village

Monsoon is here and we are almost at the tail end of it now. Winter is slowly creeping in and there is eager anticipation of the English New Year and Pongal!! This years rains have been average, our wells are full and thanks to not having too many big storms, crops have survived the rains and doing well. Heres news of Happenings in Thulir in the past five months.

BT Course summary:

The first four months of the Basic Technology Course has been eventful. In these months, the students of the batch have slowly settled down and have begun to get into the flow of things. For Perumal, Rajamma, Devagi and Vinu its a first time experience in looking after a batch of teenagers and conducting classes/ sessions for them. The mood is generally upbeat [ with occasional mood swings and periods of inactivity]. The batch is a nice size so that at any given time, even if there are a few students in a low morale, enthusiasm from the rest ensures activity and progress. Luckily for us the interpersonal relationships have been good so far, and there is a fairly high team spirit, witnessed by the groups sticking together on weekly holidays and launching on expeditions. The recent trend in the past couple of months has been bicycling long distances [inspired by Balaji!] — a couple of days back they went cycling through wet roads in a mild drizzle for a 150 km ride on rickety second hand bicycles [they carried a set of tools with them and fixed problems on the way].

In terms of classes, they have had a mix of theory classes — basic math, Tamil writing, basic Engineering Drawing, Estimation of quantities, writing a diary, preparing bills of work done etc. Their worshop / practical sessions have included masonary, plumbing, electrical wiring, bee keeping, organic farming, crafts, soap making, electronics, etc. The progress has been slow but steady and after these months, the students are slowly gaining in confidence. Some areas , especially in skills they have been quick to learn, whereas other areas have been difficult electronics, and some of the theory, for instance. Of course there is variation within the group also with different persons finding different subjects/ skills difficult to varying degrees.

The B T course diaries

As you may be aware, we have tried to maintain a monthwise diary of the course in this blog. The monthly summaries are below, and please follow the links for details.

October diary

The cycle shed is finally over!. A bamboo door was a nice opportunity for some of the students to show their craft skills.More electronics work and sessions on HIV/ AIDS are other highlights. Read more

September diary

The cycle shed construction continues and some serious organic farming work initiated. Soap making continues [with improving results!]. Sanjeev and anita come for 10 days and held a series of sessions on electronics, singing and games! Read more

August diary

August was a month of variety in the tasks taken up. More time spent in learning masonry, the fun of building an arch in the Cycle shed wall, learning to make soap, the first steps in learning to use a computer, gaining confidence in handling bee colonies, and more. Read more

July diary

Growing in confidence, our students take on building construction skills; in a short time learning a variety of skills, hoping to play a part in the construction of the new Training Centre coming up in Sittilingi. Read more

June diary

The new batch of Basic Technology Course students join this month and learning process starts right away with some plumbing, and electronics projects. Read more

Independence day celebrations :

The students were very keen to celebrate Independence day in Thulir. They offered to do all the organisation and started on the preparations on August 14th! After frantic search for a flag [they couldn’t find one in the village and the Government school did not have a spare to lend!], they cycled to Kottapatti 10 kms away in the hope that they might get to buy one. Of course in this small village it wasn’t available for sale, nor did anyone have a spare so they cycled back determined to get a flag ready. In Sittilingi they went to the man who sells clothes and bought pieces of cloth of the required colour and set off to Perumal’s house 2 kms away at 8.30p.m. By now it was raining heavily and dark. Perumal has a sewing machine and stitches dresses occasionally for family and neighbours. He then stitched the flag. Vinu, the resident artist, then took permanent markers and drew the wheel in the flag.The flag was ready,in the early hours of the 15th.

Next morning they discovered that there wasn’t a suitable bamboo pole long enough and straight to serve as a flag post, so off they went off in search of a suitable piece. They finally found a 35 feet long straight pole and erected it. A bit of rope, lots of flowers and the flag was raised ready for unfurling. Meanwhile, excited kids, came trooping in all scrubbed and neatly dressed, and stood in rows in front of the flag!! The flag was hoisted by Kannagi and Rajkumari-the Thulir cooks!

After this, we had a cultural event with different groups performing songs and dance.All of us then trekked up the hill nearby to a nice spot with a clearing of rocks big enough for all of us to sit, enjoy the view of the entire valley below and have a snack!

This event again showed us the great effort, time and persistence the children exhibit when the motivation or interest to do something comes from within themselves! And further these were children who were regarded as the non-motivated, good-for nothing failures in the villages!!

Visiting children’s houses

In October, Rajamma, Devagi, Vinu and we spent four days visiting each of our students’ homes to interact with the parents. We went to houses in Malaithangi village the first day, Sittilingi village the next 2 days and Moola sittilingi the last day.We realised that over the years we have established relationships. We also find that parents are more open and relaxed when we visit them in their houses than when we invite them for a group meeting in Thulir. Seeing them in their setting, we are also able to understand each student’s situation and problems better. We had a better dialogue with the parents this year compared to earlier years.

Visitors to Thulir:

Prof Ravindran and Mrs Vanaja Ravindran have been regular resource persons for Thulir. Prof Ravindran took sessions on Basic Engineering drawing and Vanaja akka has been teaching Tamil reading and writing skills for the seniors.

Sanjeev, Anita and Vinod came to Thulir end of July. They held several sessions for the Basic Technology Course students as well as for the younger children. The electronics sessions were great fun. They demonstrated how ‘ or’ and ‘and’ circuits work and how LEDs could be made to light up in different patterns when switches were put on in different combinations. This helped to introduce the Binary system in the following week.

Sanjeev and Anita spent 10 days again in Thulir in October. This time they took a series of sessions on basics of electronics, Maths , and also taught new songs.

Balaji too has been making regular trips to Thulir. Under his care the running programme has really taken off.Balaji has also been assessing the running styles and potentials of the students and has introduced many new aspects in the training sessions. His first trip to Thulir was on a bicycle and this has made quite an impression on the Thulir seniors. Now almost every weekend they go biking for distances ranging from 20 kms to 140 kms ! What is more remarkable is that they all have old secondhand bikes and so this means they have to do a bike servicing session before setting off and often have to carry out repairs on the way.

Balaji has also been teaching the senior students Tamil, communication skills, basic computer skills and commercial maths [prices, interests etc.]. He showed videos of football matches to introduce the sport and its rules and also showed a wonderful video on the enviromental crises.

Dr Carolyn from UK who had visited Sittilingi earlier came for a visit. She did an origami session with the younger children.

Mrs Julie from Nalam Child Development Centre, Namakkal visited Thulir.- She conducted a very effective session on the facts and myths around AIDS/ HIV.

Ms. Niranjana an artist visited us and demonstrated sketching for our children.

Anand , electrician from NIOT took a 2 day session on wiring and electricity. The students were extremely happy with his classes as it was a very practical oriented class.

Sourabh , architect from Poona ,showed them pictures of his work. His projects involving reuse of waste materials were an inspiration to us.

Archana, from Keystone Foundation, Kotagiri, talked to our students about the Tribal forest right’s bill. We need to have more sessions on this.

Organic Farming workshop :

People in this valley have always practised rainfed , organic and sustainable agriculture, planting many varieties of millets. Cash crops, waterlogged paddy and introduction of pesticides and fertilisers are relatively recent developments but are strong influences. Even now, millets are grown organically.Perumal and kannagi attended a 3 day workshop conducted by Nammazhvar, who spearheads the organic farming movement in Tamil nadu. They came back completely inspired and enthusiastic!’ ‘Iam never again going to use pesticides or fertilisers !!’declared Perumal. He had taken video clippings of important parts of the sessions. He shared this with the rest of the group and got them all higly enthused!The students prepared mulched beds, sandwich beds,compost piles, prepared Panchakavyam, Jeevamirtham etc. and planted vegetables enthusiastically, Organic farmer Jayappa’s visit happened then at the right time and gave an additional boost to their spirits. .But sadly September was a very dry month and many of their efforts didn’t come to fruit.

Single rice planting:

Some of the students took initiative and have started Single rice planting on a small patch. This is doing well. A much more ambitious scale planting of S.R.I was planned but though a lot of work was done, it didn’t materialise because of no rain at the crucial time.

Kaveri Trail Marathon:

For the second year, Thulir students participated in the Kaveri Trail Marathon.

Says Santhosh , who initiated running in Thulir,

“Firstly, the thulir kids – Vinoo, Ezhumalai and Sakthivel put on a stupendous performance. Even with the minimal training this season, all three of them did a great job at the run! Vinoo did a super fast half at 1hr 54 mins and Ezhumalai followed at 2hr 2mins. I tried hard to hold them back on the run and in the end they just bolted out 🙂 Sakthivel, coming to Bangalore for the very first time in his life did his first 10.5K in about an hour! Congrats to the thulir kids for being an inspiration for all of us.”

Bangalore Ultra marathon:

Motivated by the Kaveri Trail experience, six of our senior students ran 12.5 km distance in this event. Santhosh prepared a training schedule for them. Vinu supervised the team and assumed a leadership role.

Reading Skills:

For years we have been trying to motivate our students to read books, through various activities. Though they are interested now and do read when they have to, the teenagers are not motivated enough to pick up a book on their own initiative and read it for enjoyment.They still view books with trepidation.We have always felt sad that we have been unable to show them the beauty and magic of the world of books! Reading is never a hobby for them. With the younger kids too we have been having frequent reading and storytelling sessions. But this year , to our great delight,we find that the younger kids- [ 7-10year olds ]are really enthusiastic about handling books; they read and derive enormous satisfaction from them. They borrow books from our library very regularly.We have sessions where each of them tells stories from their favourite books to the others. They also enact stories as small plays on saturdays.They make their own small books too.

In Math too, we find the younger kids are more enthusiastic and capable – maybe because from a very young age they have been taught math as a series of enjoyable activities.

Onam:

Every year onam gives us an opportunity to make flower kolams. This year too on a small scale flower kolams were made.

Puppet shows!!

The younger children got onto a puppet making fever. They took up small stories from the library and tried to make puppets and enact the story. The first phase of making the puppets is over and a couple of enactments happened. It was a lot of fun and we realise there is scope for exploring this further as a learning tool.

Travel and absences:

Whenever we have had to travel out, our friends Prof Ravindran and Vanaja akka; Sanjeev and Anita or Balaji have been visiting Thulir and standing in for us. This has been of great help to us.We had to be away for quite a while in September due to illness in the family and hospitalisation.

Perumal, Rajamma, Devagi and Vinu work very well as a team and now take on a lot of responsibility managing Thulir. The Thulir kitchen functioning is also smooth now . We are now able to have volunteers staying here because of this. Rajamma and Devagi are now learning to purchase all the provisons either from local farmers, or the weekly market in Velanur or Kottapatti.They keep track of accounts and do a detailed stock- taking every month to calculate meal costs. The menu in the kitchen has many experimental recipes using organic, traditional millets.

Rains and tree planting:

With the advent of the north east monsoon in November, we have restarted organic farming and planting in Thulir. This year we also raised saplings for planting in the new Government high school in Sittilingi. Our students also planted some fuel and fodder trees there.

Orissa trip:

Perumal and Ezhumalai went with Mr. Ramasubramanium of Villagers to 2 projects in Orissa to help him in his installations of micro- hydel power plants there. It was a very good learning and confidence boosting experience for them.

Blessed by a few welcome showers of rain in the first week of june, the entire Sittilingi valley heaved a sigh of relief.Temperatures that were soaring at 40-41 degrees Celsius, came down to 34-36 degrees C.The grass, plants and trees responded in a flash to the rains by sprouting fresh, green leaves.The scorched, dry dusty brown summer cloak is gone and the Valley is green and beautiful again.

At Thulir our group of senior students Perumal, Senthil,Vinu, Devagi and Rajammal have grown and bloomed into a very responsible, confident, enthusiastic, sincere group and are now guiding and teaching the younger children.They also take more responsibility in the administration and management of Thulir. For instance, they all worked very hard in May in-spite of the blistering heat. May was supposedly holiday time in Thulir, i.e. we had no classes. But we had more physical work this month than most other times. We had to deepen our well, repair the mud floors and walls of the classrooms,take stock of the books and learning materials. etc… The seniors took charge of most of this work and with very little guidance, completed the work well.

Deepening work in our open well

Three boys from Moolasittilingi village who had wanted to join the Basic Technology course begining in June also came every day in May and worked hard with us. We were really amazed to see this.We had not asked them to work, nor were they getting paid. But here were these 3 teenagers – considered failures in school, spending every day of their holiday working intensely. What was motivating them? The freedom? The feeling of being treated as equals? The space? The fact that there was no compulsion? The example of the seniors working seriously? One doesn’t know.

Painting walls with home made cement-mud paint

Wiring work in Thulir office building

New Batch joins us for Basic Technology Course

As we write this, new teenagers keep coming in to join Thulir for the Basic Technology Course this year.We had decided that we will start the course from June 15th. Instead of a formal interview or test to select students where some would have to be rejected, we have asked the interested students to come in for a trial period and participate in all the daily activities. At the end of it, both sides could decide whether they should join the course or not. Three adivasi students from a village near Gudalur in the Nilgiris have come to join the course today [24th June].They have been selected to undergo this course by the Vidyodaya Education Team, who are interested in the concept of this course. We hope they would adjust to this vastly different environment and would complete the course. Activities have started with the group in the meantime.

One of our dreams this year is to document the classes/ work done in the Basic Technology course and share it through this Blog. So watch out for more posts in this space!

Summer workshop for the seniors

From May 25th to 31st we had a workshop on “Learning and facilitating Learning”. This was primarily a preparatory session for Perumal, Vinu, Rajammal, Devagi and Ezhumalai; to help them teach the younger students this year.The sessions were a mix of discussions, readings [John Holt, Totto Chan, Sylvia Ashton-Warner etc.], activities,use of teaching aids, trying out creative ways of language and math teaching and practical discussions on problems they encountered last year while teaching the younger children.

Running:

Santhosh Padmanabhan continues to inspire and guide the students. With his help and guidance Senthil has taken charge of the running training for the younger kids. A group of 6-8 children practised running every morning at 5. am throughout the summer. Santhosh visited Thulir in May along with Manjula Sridhar of Asha to interact with this group. He took Senthil, Perumal and Ezhumalai to Bangalore to participate in the Sunfeast 10 Km run on 31st May. After the run he arranged for them to visit Ananya School in Bangalore and interact with the students there. More details in the Team Asha Blog

On 20th June Perumal Ezhumalai and Vinu participated in the Valley School run.After the run they were able to go with Sudhakar of Mrinmayee to purchase materials required for Thulir, in the Bangalore Market area. These trips outside Sittilingi are valuable learning experiences , offer exposure and increase confidence among our seniors. Thanks to Team Asha and Mrinmayee for making it possible.

Traning Programme on installation and maintenance of Solar Photovoltaic systems.

With the help of V.Ramasubramanian of VillageRS Thulir conducted this 3 day training programme in April.We have been using Solar PV systems for lighting and computers successfully for the last 5 years in Thulir. We have acquired some knowledge and skills in installing and maintaining these systems.Over the years we kept getting requests from various friends / groups to train some of their personnel. Hence we decided to hold an organised training programme for 3 days in April. Mr. V.Ramasubramaniam, of “VillageRS”, an expert in alternative energy systems and the person who helped us design and install out PV systems , was the Resource person. We had participants from Hunnarshala Bhuj; Mrinmayee, Bangalore; ACCORD Gudalur; Payir, Thenur and Sittilingi. The group was a hetrogenous one with varying academic levels and langauages, and backgrounds. So planning the sessions was challenging. The Sessions were a mix of theory and practicals and we got a positive feed back from most of the participants. For us it was a very good experience. For Senthil and Perumal, who anchored some of the practical sessions, this was a confidence boosting experience.They could see some value in what they had been doing as a matter of routine.

A session on testing of  Solar PV panels

Perumal Teaching assembly of white LED bulbs

Organic Vegetable Farming

Interest has been sustained and the plants grew well. So we got some organically grown  vegetables for the Thulir kitchen. but the water crises and the deepening work of the well in May affected our farming, and we haven’t got the expected yield for the kitchen from these plots. With the new batch of students in, enthusiasm has increased and they are working to get one small portion of the land for rice cultivation. This year so far the rains haven’t been good and the well water is still not enough for agriculture, so we are keeping our fingers crossed and waiting for rains.

Harvesting onions

Getting the vegetable patch ready

An experimental raised bed for vegetables in Thulir, after seeing in Auroville!

Our corn harvest!!

Evening Students Classes

With the begining of the new academic year in June, we had a big spurt in the children coming to Thulir for the evening classes. With a few weeks of settling down and classes/ activities/schedules falling in place, now there is some order and consolidation. As we do usually, we have made groups on the basis of academic levels and age and classes have started in right earnest.

Writing Stories

One of the activities we did end of last academic year was to get the children to write their own stories and produce books and then read it out loud to the rest of the group. It was great fun and the children did the work very seriously. Already there is an increase in confidence levels when it comes to reading and writing among the younger children; this year we hope to work further and go beyond just the basics.

Govindammal

Govindammal, one of our seniors, got married and has moved out of Sittilingi.

We wish her all the best and a happy married life!

A lamp assembeled in Thulir using white LEDs, waste CD and papermache work

Welcome to the News update from Thulir. In this post we review happenings of the past 5 months

Marathon Fever

As we write this blog today our senior students – 3 girls and 4 boys, have just finished participating in the Auroville Marathon. We just received an excited phone call from them. The marathon fever has been spreading in Thulir for some months now. After Sridhar’s visit for the science camp [see our earlier news update], Team Asha came to Sittilingi for their pre marathon trial run in preparation for the Cauvery marathon.This visit inspired the Thulir students to take up running. Senthil and Vinu participated in the Cauvery marathon on Oct 19th. Senthil finished the full marathon and Vinu did a 10 km walk. Spurred by this event, other students of Thulir showed interest. Team Asha has been very supportive by hosting the students, providing running accessories and encouragement. Santosh Padmanabhan has been in regular touch with us through phone and email, patiently and diligently providing training schedules and following up progress. His sensitivity to the children’s background, his confidence in them, and his thoughtfulness have been  major factors in their accomplishment today.

Our children are born athletes and up till now their talents have been neglected and have had no opportunities to flower. Training for and participating in these events have given them a tremendous leap in their self confidence. It has also given them an opportunity to travel and to interact with the outside world. It has long been our wish that Thulir children would get opportunities in sports and we had felt handicapped by our lack of skills and resources in this field. Team Asha and Santosh’s  effort  has been a wonderful beginning and we  are looking forward to such possibilities  opening up in future. See team asha’s blog for more details and pictures.

Pongal / Kolam Festival Jan 9th -19th

Pongal, the harvest festival, and a time for celebrating and thanking nature was a week long affair in  Sittilingi. At Thulir we had our annual Kolam festival. The highlight this year was the increase in the number of boys making  Kolams. Traditionally this has been considered a women’s domain. We were invited to visit students’ homes at Moola sittilingi, Sittilingi and Nammangadu throughout the week. Being a part of the festivities and interacting with all of them socially was a very refreshing experience.

Exposure visit to Timbaktu – Dec 9th to 14th

We have always had warm and fruitful exchanges with the Timbaktu school and children’s Centre. In the past students and teachers from there had visited us; students from Timbaktu and Thulir have jointly attended training workshops and executed projects.So it was highly exciting for our older students and staff to finally visit Timbaktu as a group.Since the students of both the places were similar in social backgrounds, skills and faced similar issues, they got along extremely well with each other even without a common language to communicate with. We had workshops where both groups taught and learnt from each other. Our group came back inspired and strengthened by the visit.

Bee Keeping workshop

Justin from Keystone foundation was here on Dec 19, 20 and conducted an intensive hands on workshop in beekeeping. Since we had about 8 working colonies of bees, Justin could demonstrate all the steps in Bee keeping practically. The workshop was held to introduce bee keeping to newer students and a few interested farmers; and to provide further training to the earlier students.It was a success in both respects.

Music and crafts workshop.

Thulir walls sported a colourful look after the visit of   Lalitha from Centre for Learning, Banglaore who was here in the first week of December. She did  intensive music and wall painting sessions with the senior students and clay work sessions with the juniors. Being an experienced teacher, she was able to draw out even students who were inhibited in singing and painting. There was enthusiastic participation.We hope she would continue visiting and teaching us.

Building Construction

The common Kitchen and Dining hall construction is finally over and we are all heaving a big sigh of relief. The construction while taking significant time and effort, has provided an opportunity for a group of local youth to be trained in alternative construction techniques. We also have added much needed office space and guest accommodation.

Parents meeting
This year we invited the parents of the older children to come individually or in groups of 2 to 3 persons. We showed them in detail what their children have been doing at Thulir and some of what they have learnt. We spent 2-3 hours with each group, reported on the progress of individual student and discussed with them our plans, their expectations etc. All of them were happy with their children’s progress.We hope to do this with the other parents too.

Priya Nallan’s Visit:

Priya Nallan of Asha Princeton visited us. Though the visit was brief, the interaction was good and we feel encouraged and look forward to a continuing and meanigful relationship with Asha Princeton.

Visit of Rishi Valley students/ staff:

Abinanad, Ira,  and Siddharth, students of Rishi Valley school interacted with our students and conducted sessions in sketching, painting and making friendship bands. Another student, Abhay, made keychains.

Mr Dilip Joshi, a teacher from the school amazed us with demonstartions of furniture making using cardboard.

Prof Ravindran and Mrs Vanaja Ravindran

have as always been regular visitors and have been taking classes in language and science. Prof’s classes on repair of machines have been of great value and our senior students have grown in their confidence to service faults in our equipment.

Crafts camp:

Our evening sessions especially during rainy seasons and winter, are sometimes too short for intensive craft work. Now a days the children have stopped coming on sundays and come on Tuesday evenings instead. So we decided to have two-day camps to get more time for intensive work. We had one crafts camp in September. Around 20 children stayed over during the weekend and made bamboo keychains, friendship bands, greeting cards, paper jewellery etc.

Support of Asha Bangalore:

We are happy that Asha Bangalore has decided to support activities at Thulir. This has come at a crucial time as the newly registered Trust is in its infancy.Several visits have been made by volunteers from this chapter and we have had good interactions with them. We hope this partnership would flourish in the coming years.

Health workers’ classes:

The THI hospital has started training a new group of Health workers. Twice a week this this group comes to Thulir for classes and discussions on social and environmental issues.Some of the topics covered include tribal culture, tribal self respect, terrorism, suicides in the community, global warming [causes and effects] etc.

Vegetable gardening:

When vegetable prices skyrocketed in October and November, no vegetables were sold in the weekly vegetable market at Velanur. We had to make do with the little that we were growing. This situation and the subsequent visits to Timbaktu and Auroville [where our students saw good vegetable cultivation], have inspired the group to start organic vegetable cultivation on a serious scale this month. We hope to sustain our enthusiasm and reap the benefits!! This is important as most youth in our villages are reluctant to engage in gardening and farming activities.

As always we look forward to your comments and feedback!!

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Welcome to the News update from Thulir. In this post we review happenings of the past 5 months

Bee keeping update:

The colonies in our Bee boxes are doing well. During end of August, in the 5 boxes we have in Thulir, we were able to get 2.5 litres of honey and the bee colonies seem to be healthy.

Science camp at Thulir

In August we held a weekend camp with Science experiments as the theme.
18 children took part in the Camp that started on a Saturday morning and went on till Sunday evening with the participants staying overnight.
A range of  experiments were carried out:

–testing solubility, conductivity and inflammability of different materials and recording the outcomes
–making of scaled working models of pumps. This is based on the pumps made by Arvind Gupta [www.arvindguptatoys.com]. It was a great hit among the students and everybody had a lot of fun.
–various experiments to understand Bernoulli’s principles, air and water pressure, nature of sound and light etc

–observing parts of plants and flowers; transpiration in plants.

Sridhar and Sriranjani , no strangers to Thulir also visited us during the days of the Camp and participated. Sridhar, being a chemist took a class on molecular structures  using  models. Sriranjani taught the children  new songs to sing.  Sridhar who is a marathon runner and is currently training for a marathon, took the students for a run on Sunday morning and was surprised by their fitness levels.  Senthil  in fact went on a 16 km run the next morning and we are exploring the possibility of his participating in the Kauvery marathon along with Sridhar, Sanjeev and Santhosh, from  Asha Bangalore.

Siddharth Dananjay’s visit

Siddharth a class 11 student from Indonesia visited Thulir for a week. He interacted with the students and conducted art classes.

Govindamma joins us as a Fellow.

Govindammal, Aged 17,from Moola Sittilingi village, has recently joined us. She is being trained with Rajammal and Devaki. We hope she would be able to pick up similar skills to Rajammal and Devaki so that we have backup staff next year, in case Rajammal or Devaki decides to leave [marriage/ higher studies etc.] We are also looking for more such suitable trainees and hope to take them along if we get them and have adequate funds.

New Students in Thulir

Many children of the 5 to 8 age group have started coming to Thulir this year and we have a new and boisterous bunch of them. Their attendance varies from 15 to 25 each day. Rajammal and Devaki have picked up a lot of skills in being able to engage and guide this group of students. We also have a group of 10 to 14 age group students [mostly boys] about 15 of them attending regularly. Many of them have been attending the previous years too and have suddenly  become senior batch and have opened up showing a lot of self confidence.

The Class 10 exams in March

All the  students who attended Thulir regularly and  wrote the class x public exams in March passed. As this has happened for the 3rd consecutive year, Thulir has earned a reputation among the locals. This has been both good and bad for us. Good, as parents who thought our methods  were  not good as we didnt hit the children and therefore didnt  expect us to succeed, have begun to change their opinions and trust our teaching abilities. Its bad as a lot of children who have never been part of Thulir sessions now come to Thulir just before the exams and want to be coached. A couple of them even came the day before the exam as they thought it would bring them good luck and help them pass! One of the parents wanted to take her daughter off the Govt School  10th class and send her to Thulir full time for coaching!

We have now made it clear to the Villagers that only those children who come regularly to Thulir and have attended at least for 2 years before they appear for their exams would be helped.  We have had to do this as for most children even their basic reading/ writing skill levels are poor and so it is an uphill task to get them to a level of being able to write their 10th exams.

Going Back to school / higher studies!

There is a big wave this year among the youngsters in the villages here to continue schooling and to go out for higher studies. While this used to happen with just a few students till now every year, this year most students who passed their 10th [even the ones who finished after many supplementaries] have joined class 11 in schools outside the area, many of them joining hostels to do so. All these years  most young people used to migrate outside to work [mainly in the garment industry, but this year it has been for studying.

While this looks like a good thing as  young people get a few more years of  student life away from grueling work, the quality of education they are pursuing is poor. They often go to Govt run schools [with hardly any teachers] or to dubious private institutions that have mushroomed all around. Once the students go outside their village for higher studies, the expenses incurred on education goes up steeply and in the village there is no understanding of what quality in education means and what are the likely benefits of higher education [save for a vague promise of Govt. jobs!].

There is aggressive promotion by private educational institutions and parents and students are being lured by promises of impossible dreams into spending large sums of money. While on the one hand we want Thulir children to acquire good academic skills and do well, on the other hand we have had to try to talk to them and their parents about the dangers of the present trends. But this has been an uphill task for us and a source for great frustration.

The Kitchen

Our temporary Kitchen facility has been serving us well these past 8 months. We have had a steady stream of visitors and volunteers. The 2 part time cooks Rajkumari and Jyothi have been managing cooking the food. As they are both locals and used to cooking  only the traditional diet, we have had to train them in cooking different kinds of food for us and the outsider visitors. This has also taken much effort and Mrs Vanaja Ravindran Volunteered and taught them many new dishes. We have also incorporated many of the traditional healthy millet items to introduce it to our visitors and in an attempt at trying to preserve the tradition. This we feel is important as the food habits in the villages are rapidly changing towards unhealthy polished rice diets bereft of proteins and vitamins.

New building construction

We started the construction of a proper Kitchen, store room, guest room and dining hall in May. As we usually do, this building too is built using local materials to a large extent and local labour. This involves training local youth in building using alternative materials and methods of construction, as local skilled labour is reluctant to build in this way. We now have a steady group working on this building and learning many of the techniques. We are also planning more intensive training sessions for Annamalai, Murugan and Ezhumalai, so that their skill levels improve further. This activity has been very time consuming and we have managed by starting the work day for this activity from 6 am.

Summer break in May

Thulir was closed to students in May as were doing our annual repair work / maintenance work of the buildings. We also took a break for 2 weeks and were away meeting family. The senior students looked after the campus and the  maintenance work while we were away.

Visitors in March

This year we had 2 student Volunteers from the Mahindra World College, Pune visitng us. Niwaeli and Eneli from Tanzania and Zambia spent a week at Thulir and interacted well with our students. Learning about Africa and life in tribal villages there was very very interesting. The similarities in that exists between Sittilingi and villages there was surprising. The traditional food, and housing were quite similar. Learning all this our senior students got along very well them.They loved to eat the traditional millet balls in Sittilingi as they had been missing it in Pune. Their hair was a matter of surprise and curiosity for everybody here. One day when they went with Rajamma and Devaki to the nearby village weekly market, all the shopkeepers and shoppers crowded around them with good natured curiosity and all the girls returned back with huge grins in their faces!

Vinu our visiting student from Kanavu, Wayanad went back to Kerala in the summer as his family was building a new house and needed extra hands to help. He was to return in July, but unfortunately he injured himself while practising Kalari [a Kerala martial art] and so his coming back has been postponed.

Books from Mrs Aruna Sethupathy

We received beautiful books in excellent condition from  Mrs Aruna Sethupathy. She has painstakingly collected these books from various sources and sorted them to make a bundle of  books appropriate for Thulir. We would like to thank Mrs. Aruna Sethupathy for this magnificent gift.

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