Excellent education for 2500+ students in Chennai

At Teach For India, our Fellows work towards ensuring our students have access and exposure to all opportunties, irrespective of the background they come from. One such initiative was Chennai Students' Kondattam (CSK) which was the brainchild of the Teach for India 2012, Chennai cohort. It rose out of the need for a platform for the students to venture into a larger arena, participate in various city-wide cultural and sports events, experience academic content through myriad ways, interact with other children across the city and showcase their talents. Sharing below, a report put together by the CSK committee summing up the event as a whole. 

CSK’17: January 29th, February 18th and 19th witnessed Chennai Students Kondattam taking place at Chennai High School, Thiruvanmaiyur and at Chennai High School, Canal bank road. This combined effort of Teach for India fellows working in different schools across the city made this event a phenomenal success. CSK’17 saw a registration of close to 2500 students from 36 Corporation and low income Private Schools in Chennai.

Events & wokshops: There were events and workshops under the themes of literary, sports, arts and premier.  Adzap, Mime, JAM, Rangoli, Clay modelling are a few out of the 30 plus events that were scheduled for each day. This year’s CSK also showcased their academic prowess through technical events for the secondary kids along with the rest. This includes a science exhibition, as a grand workshop from LMES and puzzles like Sudoku. Also CSK had up to 15 workshops on storytelling, drawing, dancing, poetry, origami, creative writing, singing, doodling, theatre, hey math, public speaking etc to give students the most fun and enriching experience. Workshops were conducted by eminent volunteers, Teach for India alums, Fellows and staff.

CSK partnered with LMES (Lets make Engineering Simple) group of volunteers and conducted science experiments for secondary students, sponsored by Pinner Challangers cricket club. CSK also partnered with Kuruksastra, the cultural of SASTRA University to organize, judge and guide all the events for the primary students. 

This year CSK saw an overwhelming response and enthusiasm from all the corporation school teachers along with fellows and students. There were 48 teachers this year at venue altogether for the three days, along with 120 Teach For India Fellows and staff and more than 250 volunteers.  We were happy to have two Headmistress at the venue from CPS Kottur and CPS TV Swamy road, other than the HM's of the respective venues. We also had volunteers from various corporates supporting us with event coordination, logistics and student management. 

Many more such exposure opportunities are possible with your support, which will go a long way in helping with the leadership development of our Fellows and students alike!