This is the story of how “Our Society” made an impact on a very deprived area members. The students, Teachers and OS are very happy that the students have done well in the exams. Read their letter thanking us.
Letter from Jayachandran – OS coordinator in a Deprived Area of Valathapiddi.
For the first time in history, all the students who appeared for the GCSE (O/L) Examination from our new Valathapity village have passed.
Every year around 15 to 20 students from our village take the exam. Out of which less than ten students will achieve success and even more so only three or four will achieve success including mathematics and science subjects, this is the norm.
The reason for this is that our people lived in the city of Amparai and attended Amparai Tamil Maha Vidyalaya. It was the only Tamil school in Amparai until 1990.
The school is now closed. We didn’t have any additional classes beyond school education and not only that, the school was almost 7 kilometres away from the areas where we lived, if we wanted to go to school by bus, we had to take two buses, so many people walked to school. We were kicked out of where we were living in the year 1990. In the new village of Valathappity where we are now living, we were given only 15 thousand rupees in stages and we were settled in huts on empty lands.
Since the day we came here, we were struggling to survive, this was not an environment for peaceful education.
Those who learnt have left the town and there are not enough teachers in the surroundings.
We live in a newly resettled area, there is no formal structure here, let alone educational.
Evil and cultural decay abounded.
And so, it continued.
In the absence of a school in the village of New Valathapity, we had to go to Malvathi Vipulananda Maha Vidyalayam, which is about 4 kilometres away, to study.
As a result, there were more gaps.
Not only that! child marriages continued.
There was no educational environment here due to the absence of any formal extra-class structures except school education.
In this context, four years ago, I was a newspaper editor and political analyst; I was able to meet various respectable members of Our Society. They made arrangements to teach Maths, Science and Tamil to year 10 and 11 students in our village which is mostly under-resourced and marginalized people.
I also thought when the classes started, the teachers would be given a monthly allowance which would be given under my responsibility, and I would take it and give it to them to monitor the teachers and I expected it to go like that.
Our Society took charge and carried out the following.
- Monitoring each teacher separately
- Assess and follow up how the classes are being conducted.
- What subjects are being taught.
- Is everything being done properly?
- Are the teaching methods correct?
- Do they have the knowledge and method to teach?
- Did students understand it?
- What was the attitude of students
- Student attendance
- Exams be conducted after each lesson
- Follow up marks obtained by students
- Looking into my feedbacks
The Education Committee and other OS members very closely monitored and confirm the attendance of the teachers with me and then remit the payment to their personal bank accounts.
In cases where classes are not conducted in absence of teachers, justification was obligatory for and if substitute classes were held, they were given appropriate allowance.
Meanwhile, if classes are not conducted, payment would be suspended and they were warned and strictly investigated and the payment then paid.
Every rupee given by the donors is properly spent and implemented according to the need, rather than taking the villager’s money and donating it in the name of one’s mother and father.
I should mention that OS representative and the Education Committee were always present and very helpful.
Many people who are willing to help start some work project to do their own work but due to lack of feedback, many work projects are abandoned in the middle but Our Society approaches differently.
Our Society
- Identifies action plans on an appropriate basis.
- Analyses the plan/project.
- It starts the project after approval.
- Monitors the Projects continuously.
- Demands Feedback and controls.
Because of this, the educational activities and other activities of our society have continued successfully for the last five or six years.
In this way:
The teachers who taught our children as per the instruction of OS supervisors were very kind and strict with the children and taught them efficiently.
All our children who sat for the examination have achieved successful results.
Truly! to Our Society and its Trustees on this Occasion!
We thank a million The Education Committee, The Generous Donors and Good Souls who are giving a part of their hard-earned wages and labour for our education and for our social progress of our regions with immense love for the motherland.
Rather than our children passing the exams successfully, teaching and learning is abundant; we together have started an educational environment that is uplifting and there is a renaissance going on!
So again and again I thank you on behalf of our people.
To continue the work of our society, I sincerely pray that the families of the donors may live long and healthy, get all the blessings, and may the almighty God bless them with good health.
With Love
Jayachandran is the Resource Development Officer – Valathapiddy
Please note that this letter was rather translated literally to preserve the original spirit and feeling of the writer and the community.