About the Organisation: This organisation focuses on integrated community development, running several programmes in youth development, vocational training, income generation and health care initiatives. Projects are spread out all over
Chennai, reaching out to the city's most deprived communities. Volunteers are needed to help in transit schools, and schools for children rescued from child labour. Children attend these schools for 11 months, after which they are placed in mainstream education. The focus is on motivating children to see the benefits of education as well as enjoying it, so classes are a mix of academic subjects and activity-based learning.
Who they are: The organisation that created this community programme is named after a 17 th Century saint, who worked in social reform and founded an order of brothers who still exist today and work in poor communities. It was one of the order's brothers who came up with the idea, originally of working with the children with disabilities from poor families, where there were often neither the understanding nor the resources to help the children. Now the programme's activities have expanded into a huge range of community projects to help many more children and adults living in the slums and on the streets of
Chennai.
What they do: The project organisers say: "The atmosphere in any slum is the least conducive to any form of serious study and hence the high numbers of children dropping out of schools." The project has opened centres where school-going children from the neighbourhood gather each evening. Volunteers from the locality handle this programme extremely effectively.
The project offers counseling and motivation for supervisors and educational assistance to the children, plus games, sports and picnics. It also runs transit schools to encourage street and slum kids back into education.
What you can do: Helping with teaching is vital to an organisation that depends on volunteers but more importantly your enthusiasm and ability to make learning fun will be particularly welcomed. You'll be able to use all your skills and knowledge, whether it's in sports, arts, crafts, games, music to help this project's children stay motivated to learn and work to improve their lives.