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Learn Trust, North Thathamangalam

Dear Friends!

Greetings! On behalf of Learn Trust, I would like to
thank you all for your massive support for the successful
running of the charity. We are overwhelmed by your
support, suggestions and help! Thank you!
In the previous newsletter (March, 2014), I have
informed you about the activities that we did over the
past two years and I mentioned about the future projects.
The two school students (K. Hariharan and G. Prasanth)
whom we supported for the past two years have finished
their schoolings and joined college to pursue their under
graduation. Since Learn observed these students now to
have sufficient funds to pursue their graduation, Learn
has stopped its funding assistance to them. Of course we
do not want to help someone who has sufficient funds. I
hope you will all agree to this!
In addition to these, you will also notice that Learn has
funded another school student G. Gayathri. We funded
Gayathri with 5000 rupees for the last two years with a
view that she will do her secondary school (i.e. 9
th
and
10
th
) in a government/government funded school. We
have received concerns from some of you suggesting not
to support students studying in a private schools since the
school fee is high. Learn also thinks the same way;
however, we funded this child since she did not have a
government school near by her village. Now that she is
grown-up and can take buses to get to government
school, Learn expects her to take education in the nearby
government school. Hence, Learn stopped its support to
her. Apart from these school students, Learn has now
identified a needy college student Kanishtha, I will write
to you about her in detail in my next newsletter.
In this newsletter I want to communicate in detail with
you about an important initiative that Learn has taken in
the last few months. I know some of you might have
recognised it already; yes it is about the School Initiative.
Before I even start to write about this, I would like to
thank you all for the massive support from you all in
every possible way that you all did!
About the Project
In 2013, when I was in India, I had the chance to talk to
one of the school teacher in Panchayat Union Primary
School, North Thathamangalam. As I stepped into the
school, I have seen a very few number of students (about
23) from classes 1to 5. The important thing that I noted
was the school had 8 students in class 5 and 7 in class 4.
The remaining 8 students were in classes 3 1. I felt
really bad about this situation, mainly because I have
seen tens of students to run from the school to their home
as the evening bell rang every day. But, this was not the
case now. The teacher feared that the schools strength in

Newsletter
for your future
October, 2014
Issue 2
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Learn Trust, North Thathamangalam
2014 2015 academic year may drop to 15 students,
leading to the closure of the school in a few years time.
The next day morning, I have seen some private schools
vans that came to the village to pick students. I was
astonished to see this happen. Having seen this, I again
met with the school teacher to find out the reason for this.
After my meeting with her, I also met with few parents
and other villagers to know the real situation. After
analysing the situation critically, I came up with the
following answers for the kids to go to private school:
The government school in the village does not
provide English medium coaching and parents
want their children to take English medium
coaching.
The school did not have a better infrastructure
and teaching facility.
Apart from these main answers there were also other silly
reason for people to send their kids to English medium
such as following other people, sending their kids to
private school is a pride etc. Although most of the reason
that I found was reasonable, I cannot accept the fact that
the private schools to which the parents sent their kids
provided a good education. When I interrogated with
those students they were nearly in line with the kids that
went to the government school. So now what is the point
in sending them to private school?
I even met with some parents who struggled to pay the
tuition fee collected by the private school. Some kids
were even thrown out of the school for not paying the
tuition fee. As most of you are aware, the tuition fees that
these private schools collect are horrendous. After
spending enough time exploring about this situation, the
absolute solution to this issue was to request the
government to provide English medium in addition to the
Tamil medium which already in place for over 122 years.
To enable this Learn has teamed up with volunteers from
the village, the Schools parent-teacher association etc.
After conducting a meeting with the schools parent
teachers association, everyone agreed to start English
medium in the school. Later we wrote a petition /
requisition letter to the local educational officer asking
for English medium in the school. The educational
officer responsible to the school took our petition as we
approached him in person, and said this is more unlikely
to happen! What a shame?
We then asked him the reason, for which he replied that
the school and the census area to which the school
belongs does not have enough kids and hence he cannot
provide the permission (although there is no rule that
says a school should have these many kids to begin
English medium). The next thing our volunteers asked
was, How many students do you think you need?, not
knowing a sudden answer, the official said, at least 20.
Every time when we posed a positive question to start an
English medium, he gave us pessimistic answer.
However, we were strong and before we left we said
Okay, if thats the case, in a month time we will meet
you with a list of at least 20 students to join the school!
Having said that, his answer was okay, give me the list
and we will see after that!
Although we were sad after hearing such a pessimistic
response, this situation instilled in us a feel that we
should make this happen. The next day, we sat together
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Learn Trust, North Thathamangalam
with the school teachers and our volunteers to see how to
attract students and we prepared hand-outs to do door-by-
door canvassing.

To attract more students, in addition to the facilities
rendered by the government, we have agreed to provide
the following facilities to the kids joining our school.
Additional teacher
Uniform and shoes
Transportation facility (first year for free)
Computer facility
Yoga and Science club activities
Classes through video-conferencing etc.
Better infrastructure
We Learn, teamed-up with the like-minded people in the
village for the canvassing. We printed wall posters and
pasted it in the near-by villages (see below a copy of it).

We have also made of big hoarding with the above
design to place in the entrance of the village, so that
people can see and get to know of this initiative. Having
done all these and door-by-door canvassing in the nearby
villages including Akkaraipatti, Devimangalam,
Salappatti, Thaluthaalappatti, Valayur, Palayur,
Sriperumputhur etc., we had good response from people
and nearly 30 parents signed-up for our initiative. With
this number and list, we again met with the educational
officer. This time he had no reason to refuse apart from
saying, most of the parents are not from
Thathamangalam village and that the schools in that
areas will be affected.
We were smart enough to answer this, because we only
had the list of parents who sent their kids to private
schools and we only convinced them. We even had
interest from some parents who sent their kids to the
local government school, but we said we cannot take
them (as those schools will be affected). This time the
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Learn Trust, North Thathamangalam
officer had no chance of turning us down; however he
said, I will send this to higher officials, I dont think you
will get, we will see! We then left the office and worked
on ways to improve the student numbers and improve the
schools infrastructure.
On a weekend, Learn has teamed up with the local
youths and started in a massive cleaning camp in and
around the school. We established a clean and safe
environment to the kids and created a playground. As I
mentioned in my previous newsletter, AMS. Periasamy
Pillai Foundation has generously provided with 4 sets of
computer to the school. We have refurbished the
computers and our volunteers have established this
service to the school and its now in operation.
The government officer did not get back to us even after
a month. We understood that the officer has no plans to
process our request. Hence, we decided to escalate this to
higher officials. We have sent the petition to the district
education office, collector office and so on. Although
the district officials took some measures, still we did not
get any favourable answers. Then, we decided to go
further. We have brought this issue as a news in The
New Indian Express on 12
th
March.
This news had a good impact and later, our volunteers
also met the Director of school education in Chennai. We
had a very good response from him saying, there is no
reason why we should not provide your school with
English medium. We were happy to hear that response
and his secretary sent order to the district education
office and process the issue. In addition to these, a
petition was also signed up under the public grievances
cell of the Chief Minister of Tamil nadu (See image).


Later, less than a month after filing this petition, we got a
response from the cell that English medium will be
opened in the Thathamangalam panchayat school during
the academic year 2014 2015. This was the great news
for us, all our efforts of our volunteers and others who
were involved with us in this initiative. We also received
a letter from the district education officer confirming that
English medium will be started in the school (see the
communications in the below images).

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Learn Trust, North Thathamangalam


Although, all of these happened in March, we did not get
any further communication as on when the school is to be
started. As a result, the number of parents who agreed to
send their kids to our school has started to decrease. We
then again met with the district officer and got final
confirmation on 30
th
of May. Finally, we got that. Since
we did not have this communication before, we did not
take a string initiative to purchase a used Van to
take/drop the kids to/from school. In a few days, we
arranged all these and bought a used van and got that
running on the first day of the school (see below).
Another charity organisation VitH have greatly helped
us to buy this van. Massive thanks to Mr. S.
Murugananth and Mr. Gurunana Soundar of VitH. This
charity is also helping us with Rupees 5000 per month
towards staff wages along with Mr. Jayasheelan
Vaithilingams contribution of Rupees 2000 per month
towards the same.

The school was opened on the 2
nd
June with over 20
students in just class one whereas previously the whole
strength was just 23 (from classes 1 5). This was a
great moment to all of us. The activities that we did over
the few months (after sending out the newsletter in
March) are described in the next section.
Before I finish, I need to thank for the efforts of Mr. P.M.
Sabarikumar, Mr. D. Manikandan, Mr. M. Santosh Raj,
Mr. T. Sanjeevi and others for all their ground work.
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Learn Trust, North Thathamangalam
Like always, thank you all for your generous support.
You should all be now proud of what you are doing to
this community and the society in which we live in.
Every small help that you offer will count massively
when it reaches the needy. On behalf of Learn we thank
you all for you kind co-operation and support in this
matter.
Meanwhile, if you have any queries/suggestions please
do not hesitate to contact us.
Many Thanks!
Sincerely,



(Jayasheelan Vaithilingam)
Co-ordinator
Email: learn.charity@gmail.com
Our Activities over the Months
Science Day Celebrations

On 28
th
February, 2014, Mr. P.M. Sabari Kumar,
Secretary of Learn Trust organised an event at Shivani
College of Engineering. A special lecture was arranged
through Video Conferencing. Mr. Jayasheelan
Vaithilingam spent over an hour interacting with the
students. See photos below. Thanks to Mr. Sabari Kumar
for his immense effort in arranging this.


On the same day, National Science Day was celebrated at
the Panchayat Union Primary School, North
Thathamangalam. Students made exhibits and performed
various acts including villuppaatu etc. Prizes were
awarded to these students for their participation. Some of
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Learn Trust, North Thathamangalam
the photos from this event are attached below. We thank
Mr. M. Santosh Raj and Mr. D. Manikandan for
organising this event along with the school teachers.
Well done guys! A big applause for you!







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Learn Trust, North Thathamangalam

Students performing Villuppaatu.
Womens Day
Womens day was celebrated by giving sweets.
School Opening
English medium was opened on the 2
nd
June. A special
thanks to Mr. Deepak Murthy for helping is with
photographs. Childeren came happily to the school as
witnessed in the below image! What a smile and joy in
her face? We should all be pround that we made this
happen with our extra-ordinary effort

The school teachers lighting the start of English medium.



Students gathered for the National Anthem on their first
day at the Panchayat Union Public School, North
Thathamangalam (June 2
nd
, 2014).

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Learn Trust, North Thathamangalam


On 15
th
August, Independence Day was celebrated.
Thanks to Mr. P.M. Sabarikumar, Mr. D. Manikandan,
Mr. M. Santosh Raj, Mr. T. Sanjeevi and others for their
help and support in organising the event. Mr. P. Selvaraj
donated the school students with a pair of shoes and
socks. Mr. Raja and Mr. Kandasami supported with a
pair of school uniforms for each students.








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Learn Trust, North Thathamangalam



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Our Facebook Page:
https://www.facebook.com/learnforyourfuture?ref=hl
Our address
Learn Trust
148, Kudi Street,
Thathamangalam (North),
Mannachanallur,
Tiruchirapalli,
Tamilnadu,
India. Postcode: 621005

Our Bank Account Details
Account Name: Learn Charitable Trust
Account Number: 32353495958
IFSC Code: SBIN0011557 (Srinivasa Nagar Branch,
Trichy)
Our Registration Number: 89/2012

We send our sincere condolences to Mr.
Subramani and his family members for the
demise of his wife Mrs. S. Maheshwari.

Mrs. S. Maheshwari supported our initiative
with the school. We wish her souls to rest in
good peace!
Condolences
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Issue 2, October 2014