Pudiyador's vision is to empower underprivileged sections of Indian society, primarily through an education program that fosters intellectual, social and cultural development of the children. We also strive to increase awareness of values such as compassion, personal responsibility, and respect for others in the children and their families. In addition, we seek to provide the families with means to improve their social, economic and personal well-being through programs that include health care, substance abuse awareness, adult literacy classes, vocational training, and self-improvement workshops. For the underprivileged children, Pudiyador will provide a safe, interactive, fun and hand... read more Pudiyador's vision is to empower underprivileged sections of Indian society, primarily through an education program that fosters intellectual, social and cultural development of the children. We also strive to increase awareness of values such as compassion, personal responsibility, and respect for others in the children and their families. In addition, we seek to provide the families with means to improve their social, economic and personal well-being through programs that include health care, substance abuse awareness, adult literacy classes, vocational training, and self-improvement workshops. For the underprivileged children, Pudiyador will provide a safe, interactive, fun and hands-on learning environment. Our education programs for the children will include: (a) after-school academic help; (b) extracurricular activities that provide exposure to art, theater, music, dance, and sports; (c) character building through interactions with various role-models, story-telling and theatre workshops; individual counseling; awareness about social and environmental issues, etc. The aim of these programs would be to nurture the unique individuality and natural intelligence of every child; encouraging them to grow into confident, sensitive, and responsible adults who will become positive role models. For the children to truly benefit from the Pudiyador experience, and in order for them to apply their learning and experiences in their everyday life, we believe it is important to create a favorable environment not only in Pudiyador centers, but also outside of Pudiyador, as much as possible. For this purpose, Pudiyador will: (a) help sensitize the underprivileged adults (including parents, teachers, community leaders and other community members) through various awareness, counseling and self-help programs; (b) help provide access to basic healthcare and well-being for the children and their families. While Pudiyador would like to do all of this for all the people in the community from the start, it may not be feasible due to resource constraints. We will follow a process that involves the following groups: 1. Primary school children 2. Adults in the community (not just parents whose children attend Pudiyador) 3. Teachers in local government schools which the children attend 4. Middle school and high school children The primary focus will be on groups (1) & (2) simultaneously, closely followed by (3). Once the community is stabilized and more resources are available, we will expand the focus to include (4). Such a simultaneous approach will create a strong foundation for Pudiyador to becomes integrated with the community and empower it from the grassroots, rather than as an external agent forcing change. An essential component for the long term success of Pudiyador is to make every center (in any community) self-sustaining over a 5-10 year period. Every center will function as an independent chapter with its own administration, management, staff and volunteers. All powers and skills to manage and successfully run the Pudiyador center must be transferred to local community members over a 5-10 year period, so that the future generations of the community continue to reap the benefits of Pudiyador. --------------------------------- 9 years after we wrote our mission statement, we are proud to report that we have operated in 7 different underprivileged communities in the city of Chennai, India. We have seen a mix of successes and failures in implementing our plans but the results have mostly been positive. We continue to focus on the youngest age group of children (6-12) but we now have a fully functioning young-adult program (for ages 13-18) in each of our currently operating 4 centers. A team of teachers form the backbone of our operations for whom we continue to provide academic and soft skills training while continuously evaluating their performance and their behaviors/treatment towards our children. We also have a fully functioning community interface program that continues to keep the parents of the children as well as the rest of the community members engaged in our efforts. Without this program, our efforts would not nearly be as successful. Based on our progress, we are working on expanding our reach to more children and neighboring communities. We are also working on a new program that will cater to young and expectant mothers and their infants, following research that shows that quality of life in the first 2 years of life largely determines life outcomes. A multi-community cradle-to-college approach is likely to increase the returns on our efforts and create deep changes that will propagate themselves independently and for many generations to come.
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By Veenaa Annamalai | Director of Outreach and Communications
Home Based Early Simulation Home Based Early Simulation is for infants between ages of 2-3 years. Our School Bridge coordinator conducted these sessions for our cradle mothers. The sessions teach... Read the full report ›By Veenaa Annamalai | Cradle Health Update
Cradle Health Workshop Part 2 Completed! We successfully finished our cradle health workshop - part 2 about breastfeeding with our cradle mothers. 27 of our mothers have successfully completed this... Read the full report ›By Veenaa Annamalai | Pudiyador's Cradle Health and the Pandemic
Our Cradle Health program has bloomed during lockdown with more than 30 mothers joining the program from all our communities Our Cradle Health Nutrition kit One of our Cradle Mother, Mrs Muthulakshmi... Read the full report ›