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Chandra's Work Report for the period January 2005 - December 2005 |
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Chandra Work Report for the period January 2005 - December 2005 Introduction - Volunteered for AID-India/TNSF from 2000 - 2002
- Full time with AID-India from 2003 till date
One-Year Work Report This year has been a special one - starting off with the phenomenal effort during the Tsunami, starting of new AID direct blocks in Koovathur and Soolagiri, expansion of the library programme to more than 1000 villages and building a larger full time team. The team and scale of operations expanded suddenly and it has been a year of tremendous pressure. I have thoroughly enjoyed it and learned a lot.
Once things settled after the Tsunami, my main role was in developing new ideas and implementing them in the area of primary education. I also helped with overall admin and team coordination. Tsunami Relief and Rehab - Helped with overall coordination at Chennai in sending immediate relief supplies to around 60 villages for around one month
- Worked on coordinating volunteers who came in large numbers until March 2005
Primary Education Programme - Developed the Balwadi Toy and Activity van programme
- Designed and facilitated a study for establishing need for initiatives in the balwadi
- Introduced activities to be done at the balwadi
- Defined the model for activities in the reading classes
- Developed the structure and interacted with the SSA for a pilot reading programme by Govt. school teachers
- Conducted several training programmes for the block primary full time team for planning their activities and content of class
- Conducted 2 training sessions for around 100 Balwadi teachers in Koovathur
Material Production - Worked on developing a manual with consolidation of the activities for reading
- Developed “Then Thuligal” - an activity book for learning alphabets
- Worked on simple paragraph cards, story charts, word cards kit for reading
- Developed ideas for the Balwadi Kit and manual
- Developed a booklet of ideas for pre-school children - “Activities for young children”
- Wrote 1 Science Story for the Secondary Education team
- Developed ideas for the painting the Toy Van and the walls of primary schools and balwadis
- Coordinated and worked on completion of the Tamil translation of John Holt's book - “How children fail”.
- Helped make a preliminary video on problems in how children read and activities for the same
- Have been working on developing a Math Kit for primary school children and manual for the same
Other Special Activities - AID-US conference: Visited AID US Chapters and attended the conference. Presented AID Chennai's work - both Tsunami and regular in around 18 places.
- FolkMart Website: As a result of the US trip, found volunteers interested in making a website for FolkMart. Along with Lokesh and Rakith, designed and developed the website www.folkmart.org, and launched it on October 2nd 2005
- Science Education Training in Pratham Mumbai: Presented AID's science education programmes to the Pratham network and along with Gomathy, demonstrated a demo class and the experiment kit.
- ASER: Coordinated with the Pratham network for a national survey of learning levels and school infrastructure. In TamilNadu, planned for and helped implement the survey in 310 villages in partnership with 12 other groups.
- Newsletter: Worked on and brought out 2 issues of the AID TN newsletter “Small Steps”
Volunteer coordination - Tuition center survey: Coordinated a programme where around 30 volunteers participated in a tuition center survey to find and register around 97 tuition centers in a single day
- Reading levels dipstick survey in 100 villages: Coordinated with around 40 volunteers from Chennai to conduct a dipstick survey in Koovathur, Kelambakkam, Vembakkam, Tirunelveli and Nagai on a single weekend.
- Just formed a volunteer group in SCM Microsystems for developing products in Equitech
Internship coordination - Worked with volunteers Sowmya & Hema who spent around 2 months in Chennai, conducting a study and activities at Balwadis in Chennai. They were also able to help with material production for the balwadi kit.
- Worked with Mike - a volunteer from Canada - who spent a month at Chennai. He developed material for the library programme as well as for the balwadi kit.
Donor Relations - Worked on and took to completion proposals for the toy van programme, science education - demo classes and material production, tsunami integrated block programmes, library programme and graded reader development programmes.
- Coordinate reporting and donor relations with Pratham US, MSDF, Pratham India, Rotary Club of Madras, UNICEF
Coordination & Processes - Helped prepare a vision document for AID TN
- Participate in weekly Coordination Group meetings for admin and other decisions
- Participate in monthly accounts meetings
- Helped structure monthly review and tracking meetings
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