It has been a long time since I wrote here, not that I forgot. Just that I had more immediate things to take care of. Loads of work has been going on meanwhile and here is a quick update. Thank you "Quite Bored" for bringing me out of my slumber.
It has been 3 months at Niveditha Nikethan and we are loving it. 'We' includes a group of working professionals and 28 lovely girls aged 6 to 16.
We initially started out to teach them a little about computers. But the wide age group and the English skills of the children hampered our progress. Not that they could not go ahead with learning computers without learning English. We could manage teaching them in Tamil, their native tongue. But they wanted to learn English and we wanted to teach them, in order to make it easier for them to work on their own (at a later date) on Windows.
We have installed a used PC there for them to experiment on. They took to it pretty easily. This is only for the older girls. The younger ones are unable to get at the computer because they are 1) scared, 2) unable to make out alphabets in English, 3) they don't have enough time to work at it, after school especially when the older girls are around.
Them being scared has not been an issue so far, we have been able to bring them out of their shells. It just took a little smiling. They love being called out or made to say something to the rest. I imagined they would be too nervous to talk in front of 30 people, but they glow with pride anytime they are asked to do something. There is healthy competition in the air, they vie for our attention.
Here are some pictures. There is a lot more to tell you about, but I know you don't like my looong posts, and I can't effectively summarize what I have to say right now. So I will post that again soon. Please keep watching.
They love attention, they love fun
It has been 3 months at Niveditha Nikethan and we are loving it. 'We' includes a group of working professionals and 28 lovely girls aged 6 to 16.
We initially started out to teach them a little about computers. But the wide age group and the English skills of the children hampered our progress. Not that they could not go ahead with learning computers without learning English. We could manage teaching them in Tamil, their native tongue. But they wanted to learn English and we wanted to teach them, in order to make it easier for them to work on their own (at a later date) on Windows.
We have installed a used PC there for them to experiment on. They took to it pretty easily. This is only for the older girls. The younger ones are unable to get at the computer because they are 1) scared, 2) unable to make out alphabets in English, 3) they don't have enough time to work at it, after school especially when the older girls are around.
Them being scared has not been an issue so far, we have been able to bring them out of their shells. It just took a little smiling. They love being called out or made to say something to the rest. I imagined they would be too nervous to talk in front of 30 people, but they glow with pride anytime they are asked to do something. There is healthy competition in the air, they vie for our attention.
Here are some pictures. There is a lot more to tell you about, but I know you don't like my looong posts, and I can't effectively summarize what I have to say right now. So I will post that again soon. Please keep watching.
The Whole Group
They love attention, they love fun
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