Prince Andrew launches ARM’s social programme (Sahasra Deepika Institute for Education) in news

Bangalore : Duke of York Prince Andrew Thursday launched chip designer ARM's corporate social responsibility (CSR) programme here that will benefit hundreds of underprivileged children in India's silicon hub.

Andrew, second son and the third child of British Queen and Duke of Edinburgh, dedicated 6,000 hours of ARM employees' work to three social organizations - Ashwini Charitable Trust, Sahasra Deepika Institute for Education and the Marathalli government school, located in and around Bangalore.

"I am pleased to support ARM's CSR initiative with the local community and specifically children, with a commitment of 6,000 hours of the company time to three projects over the next two years," Andrew said after inaugurating the new design centre of the ARM India subsidiary.

The CSR programme, christened Anvas, which means "to reach out" in Sanskrit, will support a range of socio-economic, educational and health initiatives.

"We will contribute a financial amount matching the personal contributions of employees to encourage Anvas," ARM Holdings vice-president (HR) Bill Parsons said on the occasion.

The Prince also lauded ARM for setting up India operations and expanding its facility to become the largest chip design centre outside its headquarters in Cambridge, about 120 miles from London.

"I am delighted to visit ARM in Bangalore and impressed by what is being achieved here. As a leading British firm, ARM produces key business-to-business solutions for the electronic world," Andrew said in a statement later.

The $514-million firm, formerly Advanced Risc Machines (ARM), designs processors (semiconductor chips) for advanced digital products spanning wireless, networking and consumer entertainment solutions to imaging, automotive, security and storage devices.

Andrew, who is on a week long visit to India beginning March 9 to promote bilateral trade and investment between the two countries, called on Karnataka Governor Rameshwar Thakur earlier in the day.

He also visited state-run Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL), IT bellwether Infosys Technologies Ltd and British technology firms including as Logica CMG and AstraZenaca.

http://www.indiaprwire.com/businessnews/20080313/28476.htm
http://news.webindia123.com/news/Articles/Business/20080313/909076.html
http://www.twocircles.net/2008mar13/prince_andrew_launches_arms_social_programme.html

Regards
For more information on Sahasra Deepika Institute for Education contact Arun (9886132507/ tvmarun@gmail.com)
http://www.sdie.org

Sahashra Deepika Independence Day celeberations

Sahashra Deepika school organized a very good Independence Day celebrations.

Another organistaion called ashwini trust from Ulsoor, Bangalore also attended the celebrations.

The function was really well organized & highlight was the excellent performance by the kids of the home and students of Ashwini Charitable Trust. All the events were well practiced and performed. We were back to our good old school day celebrations.

Our sincere thanks to Dr.T V Ramakrishna and Mrs. Vijaya Ramakrishna, founders of Sahasra Deepika school, who had invited us and gave us an opportunity to see the kids perform. The function ended with a great lunch arranged by SDI.

We also interacted with founders of Ashwini Charitable Trust Mrs (http://ashwinitrust.org/index.html) and their students.

A note has to be made on Dr. T V.Ramakrishna, who is a very inspiring person. Leaving a lucrative career in US as professor, he headed home to help the underprivileged. Today he has 60 kids from different parts of the country. In fact he is even willing to give full administration guidance to those who are willing to start school for Orphans/Underprivileged. We were very much inspired by his vision & clarity of thoughts !

It was a memorable 60th Independence day for us ! It is our responsibility to extend all the help we can for the school !!

For the photos please visit :

http://www.flickr.com/photos/90208175@N00/

I Forget to tell ..Vijaya Ramakrishna celebrated her birthday with us.

http://www.sdie.org

ThankyouNoteFromAnilGupta

Last Friday's visit of Sahasra Deepika kids to our office...

Dear Colleagues,

I would like to thank all those who contributed in various ways in supporting the visit of Sahasra Deepika children to our office last Friday. Thanks to those who volunteered their time bringing and dropping the children from/to their center, to those who showed off the neat stuff we do here at our office, to those who were with the children in the office and at lunch making them comfortable, to those who made the arrangements for their transportation and for their lunch, to those who picked up their gifts and wrapped them up nicely in gift wrappings, and to all those who contributed generously through donations.

As you can see, it took a lot of people doing a lot of different things for this simple 3-hr visit of the children to materialize. Please keep up the spirit and come forward to support our efforts in this regard through Anvas – the ARM India initiative to make a positive difference in the lives of the not-so-privileged children in our community. Together, we can make a difference!

Thank you & Best regards,

Anil Gupta
Managing Director
ARM Embedded Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
Bangalore, India

www.arm.com

http://www.sdie.org

Sahasra Deepika Students field trip to ARM

Anvas (ARM social committee) organized a field trip for the kids of Sahasra Deepika an NGO. This is the very first out of campus event that ANVAS team had organized for this school. There were 30 kids in total whose age ranged from 10 to 13 years. The children were picked by couple of volunteers from their school and were transported to the office in a van. They were excited to go on a trip to an office. Which means they would now see how a real office is from inside at close quarters.

They arrived at our office at 11:30am and were taken on tour. They were quiet chilled when they were inside the office and thrilled at the fact that it was air-conditioned. They were in awe seeing the interiors, the cubicles, the chairs, so many computers with big flat screen. They were shown the server room and told that this is the heart of the entire office. They asked why it was so cold in the server room. They entered the Support room and saw where their familiar volunteers sit and work. From support room one can view the flight take-off and landing and these kids got the opportunity to see a flight land.

An ESD engineer showed them a demo of 3D modeling, flight, jet, robotic cow, car etc., We seated them in the cauvery conference room which has a seating capacity of 40. Showed them the projectors, speakers, screen, white board etc., One volunteer showed them the ARM powered products on the screen. Later the kids sang the slokas (sacred rhymes) and entertained the adults present in the room. It was lunch time and we took the kids to the ARM cafeteria. They sang a prayer song before having lunch. The employees mingled with the kids. They had nice time interacting with the adults. They played at the Gym like it was a play ground. Later each kid was handed out a gift individually wrapped and were given chocolate bars. They went back to their place around 2:15pm.

Anvas: Helping Hand

Subject: Monitory and mentoring support for the Children of Sahasra Deepika

Sahasra Deepika International for Education

Viswamanavakshetra, Anekal Taluk, Sakalavara Post, Bangalore 560 083, India PH:9886132507/9845348260

Dear all,

Subject: Monitory and mentoring support for the Children of Sahasra Deepika

Greetings to all. You are aware of the mission that we at Sahasra Deepika have undertaken. As you know Sahasra Deepika International for Education is a charitable trust founded to help children with no parents and/or children with a single parent to get adequate education and skills to become useful members in society. To reach this goal it is imperative to educate the children in an environment that is at par with the typical schools in the city. As a part of this objective, we started a residential school with 12 children in 1998 and at present we have a total of 54 children (Brochure). But.Sahasra Deepika Residential School has no permission to operate beyond seventh standard for it does not meet the State criteria of 25 children per class beginning from 8th standard. In addition, we have found it expensive to operate a separate school for a small number of students. Therefore we have decided to send 5^th to 8^th standard children to other private English medium schools where they can fit in. As our SDI children were taught in three languages including Kannada, English and Hindi from the very beginning, they can fit into any other English medium school.

We visited several schools and finally we have decided to send our children to "Silicon Valley School" at Gottigere that have approval to offer I.C.S.E curriculum in English medium. It has also approval from Karnataka State to offer SSLC program in English medium.. Silicon Valley School has agreed to give admission to our 29 students including 9 students in 5th standard, 7 students in 6^th standard, 8 students in 7th standard and 5 students in 8^th standard. The annual fee for each student is Rs 9000 per school year (concession rate) which includes tuition, books, uniforms and transportation. The total cost of fees for all the 29 children would be Rupees 261,000.00 per year. We request your esteemed organization or individuals to help us in providing scholarships to these precious children. We very much appreciate your kind consideration in the matter.

How you can help:

1).Become a friend and spend some time with them.

2).Celebrate your kid's birthday with Sahasra Deepika Children.

3).Sponsor a child Rs.1, 000/- per month and Rs.10, 000/- per year.

4).Donation to Sahasra Deepika on days of festivity, pooja, marriage etc.

Note: Donation qualifies for IT exemption U/S 80G. Cheques/Drafts should be drawn in favour of Sahasra Deepika International for Education or Silicon Valley School, Gottigere

Sincerely
Dr.T.V.Ramakrihna

"We live in a world which is full of misery and ignorance. The duty of each and all of us is to try to make the little corner we can influence somewhat less miserable and somewhat less ignorant than it was before".

For more information please visit these links:

http://sahasradeepika.blogspot.com/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/90208175@N00/

http://www.sdie.org

Regards,
Arun Kumar

Tips for new Volunteers

http://www.muktafoundation.org/

Hi All,

This is for the benefit of ppl who would like to teach in future in any NGO. Mailing it as it was requested by Arun(arun@muktafoundation.org).

Initially though we thought of teaching 8th and 9th std kids along with 10th std, we had to restrict ourselves to 10th Std (English and Kannada medium) as we were only four of us. We used to visit only during weekends. We had a time table set up for each one if us.

We noticed that the kids were not revising anything as some of us were not regular in the beginning and kids were initially not serious.

After we became regular also, we had to revise whatever that was taught a week before for at least 30min before we teach them new topics. This happened for about three weeks. Then I realized that I need to visit even more frequently if not others. So I started going on weekdays and weekends. This is when I found good response from the children. They remembered what was taught (something if not everything).

I used to give them surprise tests (few problems to solve) just to see how equipped they were for the tests. They did well in tests as the tests were confined to less potions.

It was hard to digest for us the fact that the children scored very less in their first preparatory. Later due to continued efforts of all the volunteers, we were able to help them perform better. The results were good in second preparatory.

We are expecting their grand finale results & hoping for better results.

On behalf of Socare team,

Warm Regards,
Kusuma
Mukta foundation.

http://www.muktafoundation.org/

India Sudar Visit toSahasra Deepika Institute for Education (India), Bangalore

Hello All,

Myself, Shiva Narayana visited Sahasra Deepika Institute for Education along with Arun on last sunday. He is frequent visitor to this school and he is one of volunteer.

We have to keep going from Diary circle on Bannerghatta Road and you can see Meenakshi-Sundaresan temple on right hand side, from there it is about 4 km, you can see TULIP RESORT BOARD and take a left turn and keep going for another 4 km - you will that beautiful resort with fruit trees stand in measured distance of one another and you will see a good building.

That is Sahasra Deepika Institute for Education. Sahasra Deepika means, "a thousand lights". This home built by T.V. Ramakrishna in 1998, opened with 12 children. they have currently have 56 children ages 4-12 living and learning at Sahasra Deepika.

About the School

• Sahasra Deepika Instiute for Education (SDI) is residential school with 56 students.
  
• The school complex is situated close to the village of Sakalavara.
  
• The main building has been designed to accommodate 1000 children with five
  classrooms and separate boys and girls sleeping areas.
  
• Their English-medium curriculum is focused. Currently, they are providing from 1st to 7th Standard and they are extending the school to provide higher education along with different oganization.
  
• The founders donated the land and the initial building for the establishment of the SDI campus.
  
• One housemother is taking care of 56 children now including cooking and serving food.
  
• Students are very desciplined and they keep their environment clean.
  

We had interacted with students and they gave their self introduction with one quote from Swami Vivekandanda, Mahatma Gandhi and many others.

They all have different ambitions to become doctor, engineer, dancers, singers, scientist, police, soldier and etc. There are good singers as well. They sang few songs for us, it was excellant experience.

They have small library, science lab and computer rooms.

They have deployed 5 teachers and they come and go everyday.

Their average monthly expenses comes around 2 to 3 lakhs

Admision Criteria

Admission to the Sahasra Deepika Institute (SDI) is open to any child irrespective of caste, creed, religion, gender, and nationality.

The priority of the institute is to accept children who have inadequate care, either because of being orphaned, deserted or homeless, living under abject poverty, or as a consequence of a dysfunctional family environment (i.e. battered mothers etc.,).

Children must be between 3 and 6 years old and satisfy one of the following criteria:

Orphaned with no caregiver.

Loss of one parent with inadequate care by the remaining parent.
Deserted/homeless children with poor family structure/abject poverty.

Applications for admission to SDI can be obtained by contacting the Secretary, SDIE, Bangalore. Children admitted to SDI are given free education/boarding until they complete high school.

Donations

TARGET USA Company donated few computers and they are looking for a teacher to provide computer education.

RORATY CLUB Bangalore provided a van.
HoneyWell provided solar systems

Many friends from ARM Company are visiting this place and spending their weekend with those kids.

About the Founders Dr. Ramakrishna and his wife Ms. Vijaya

Dr. Ramakrishna was born in a village called Thallagavara, 60 k.m. from Bangalore. His father died when he was very young and his widowed mother did her best to educate him. The teachers in the remote rural school spotted the young boy's potential and encouraged him to study with small amounts of scholarships that came his way. His first scholarship amount was six rupees. As he continued to maintain high scholastic standards, his scholarship money increased to a princely sum of ten rupees! He lived in hostels that served him measured food. His degree in Civil Engineering got him a job at the PWD, where he worked for over a year only to realise that this was not his calling. So he started to teach at the Visveswaraya College of Engineering before leaving for the U.S to do a Master's in Engineering and Planning and later his doctorate.

Dr. Ramakrishna and his wife Ms. Vijaya spend most of their time travelling through villages to see if they can help a truly deserving child.

"Give them food, they are hungry again. Give them education, they are forever away from poverty." This is the maxim that governs the Sahasra Deepika Project.

How can we support them

(1)The major help would be spending time with them to teach and interact.
(2) We can help poor kids to get admission there or make their parents to aware of this school.
(3) They are looking for donations also.

Contact details

Sahasra Deepika International for Education

Viswamanavakshetra, Anekal Taluk

Sakalavara Post, Bangalore 560 083, India

Phone: (011-91-80) 27803504

By Bus: Take route No. 367 at Kalasipalyam bus stand and get down at Viswamanavakshetra-Hulukasvanahalli

By Car: proceed from Bangalore on Bannerghatta road for about 12km till you see the sign for Sahasra Deepika on the left. Make a left turn onto Sakalavara Road and proceed for 2 km and then make a left turn onto Sakalavara Road and proceed 1km to the Institute gate on the left.

You can contact Arun for more help to visit this place : +91-98861-32507

Shiva and Arun - Please add your comments, if i have missed something. Uday - Please add the photographs in INDIA SUDAR BLOG.

Regards

K.Ravikumar

Bangalore

1. Uploaded photos in India Sudar Blog:
http://indiasudar.wordpress.com/tag/ka-sahasra-deepika-institute-for-education/

For more info visit, http://www.sdie.org
www.indiasudar.com