Help Give A Child The Wings Of Knowledge

As a dear friend and supporter of the East West Foundation Of India, through our “Give a child the wings of knowledge” campaign on Global Giving, we are excited to update you with our recent work.

School participation is at its highest level ever

School is now in session for over 70 children from surrounding communities; double last year’s enrolment.  The weather has been unusually hot, even for our region so thankfully we will soon be fitting solar powered air conditioning on the computer buses.  This will ensure the students can focus on learning and we can be active for longer and provide more hours of service daily.

Our facilities continue to be improved

While our school is close to the Bay of Bengal and the afternoon onshore breezes mean the children would rather stay than go home, we continue to focus on improving the facilities and environs.

Many new trees have been planted for fruit and shade. We are completing plans for new classrooms and the lunch kitchen & dining amphitheatre centre.

Our new wastes water systems are working beautifully and have quickly and materially improved processing and in turn the general conditions.

Organic farming, which is also a part of our ECO learning programme. The farm continues to provide healthy fresh snacks.

Vellatha’s story.  We are blessed with many beautiful stories from our children and share this one with you.

Vellatha is a bright and wide-eyed little girl ever curious and eager to know more. Sadly, this 8 year old girl was not always like this. She came to our home and school in 2011 from a local fishing community, after her father died due to alcohol addiction. Her mother remarried and has a new child to her new husband whose family restrict contact between Vellatha and her mother who she now rarely sees.

Vellatha has shown remarkable progress given the care, protection, love and opportunity to learn and play at the Uluru Children’s home.

 She loves her school where she gains knowledge on various subjects like Maths, Social Science, English and Tamil; not only through books and classroom teaching, but also through play and hands on experience. The school adopts activity-based learning where the children are encouraged to ask questions, discuss the subjects freely and work together on projects.

Environmental awareness is a central focus of the children’s education.  Show-and-tell programs on the local flora, with preserved samples of local creatures like snakes and fishes enhance their understanding and each child plants trees. Vellatha takes pride in the ones she herself has planted and she waters them with care daily and enjoys watching them grow. Along with her classmates Vellatha learns how cows are nurtured and even how cow dung is converted to rich manure as part of the organic farming component of ECO learning.

Vellatha has in her time with us, grown more and more expressive.  She now happily pencil sketches pictures, giving wings to her imagination, and always excited to show her latest creation.

She is always keen to show off her new ticks in the playground,  Vellatha has flourished in the warmth, love and learning of our community and is very social, particularly with her close friends, Bhuvaneswari, Ajai and Maha.

We are focused on the future

We are so grateful for your contributions that will have a direct impact on the lives of Vellatha and many more like her.

In the near future, our focus will be to build 5 new classrooms for the school and a dining room. Also to continually enrich the children’s lives and provide a safe haven.

We look forward to updating you on progress in our next report and hope you understand how much we appreciate your generous support.