SIGARAM FOUNDATION

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Sigaram Foundation

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Sigaram Foundation nurtures school children in the remotest parts of Tamil Nadu, India. Children are sent to schools by their daily wage labourer parents just until they are old enough to become labourers themselves. Schools barely have four walls and a roof and most teachers don't, and are not paid enough to, care.

We at Sigaram Foundation believe that these children too should be able to dream of a better tomorrow. We work to create a real foundation for those dreams.

.Who we Are

A few young men, first generation college graduates in their families, realised that many more youngsters could not get an education though they desperately yearned for it. So they started working to find ways to enable poor children and youth to study by contributing and collecting money for them.

But they found that there was a greater obstacle for these children than just lack of money. They found that growing up dirt poor meant that money alone, does not help them come out of their poverty and education alone, does not take them anywhere. The children needed guidance, advice, and support.

They needed a Mentor to teach them about the big world and tell them how to get where they wanted to go. To lift their spirits when they sagged and give them moral support when they felt lost and could not see where they had to go.

They also saw that the society was hardly lacking in excellent Mentor material - scholars, professionals and even older students - and what Sigaram Foundation (as they named themselves) did was to start a mission to bring those scholars and students closer. Sigaram Foundation mission is to mentor students and not merely to fund their education.

How we Help:-

Teachers in village schools are hard-pressed for time; often, they have to teach several classes instead of just one or two. And this means that they are unable to give students much more than the very basics, and certainly not enough to get very far. This is where Sigaram Foundation mentors come in. Since the class toppers usually are motivated enough to find their own way Sigaram more on the second rung students and support and motivate them to complete school with good marks.

What We Do:-

The Mentorship Scheme
The rural children have to be taught virtually everything that a city child or children from families with better economic status learn as they grow up and take for granted.

General awareness about the society, personal hygiene and inter-personal communication are all unknown things in the life of a child growing up in these remote villages where parents leave the eldest child to parent younger siblings as they commute long distances to work at manual labourers’ jobs

Who are mentors? Mentors are Sigaram members often schoolteachers, sometimes professionals who can spare the time and some money to take care of one child’s education and, more importantly, help realise the child’s true potential by providing vital guidance and support through the years..

A Sigaram mentor meets the student regularly and speaks to him or her every week. This regular contact is priceless for the student to clarify doubts in lessons as well as open up and seek guidance about personal problems. We have already seen this system starting to succeed. Students eagerly await the weekly phone call from their mentors, and we are able to spot early the signs of dropping out or psychological and emotional distress.

Students are also encouraged to write letters and postcards to their mentors. This not only provides a means for regular update, but also gives the mentor an opportunity to tone up the communication skills and overall development of the child..

Would you like to help a child? Click here : www.sigaramtrusts.blogspot.com

Wat You Can Do :-
There are 2 ways by which you can support Sigaram. If you can spare a weekend once in three months, if you are fluent in Tamil, and if you’d like to help our next generation grow up with a good education then you can be a mentor. If time/location is your constraint then you can be a supporter. A supporter can help to generate funds, help with documentation, material purchases, maintain Coaching Classes etc.

Because Mentors work with children at a vulnerable age group, we require them to complete a test successfully. Later they will be trained in mentorship at a one-day workshop conducted by professionals. We would like a mentor to offer his/her commitment for atleast a year for ensuring the stability of support.

Like any other small, non-profit organisation, financial help is always welcome. It would be even better, if you could help us out by directly providing school supplies. This includes books, dictionaries, note-books, uniforms and the like. Mentors have been pitching in to pay for footwear, bed sheets and pencil box sets in addition to school fees. Other expenses involve the food and accommodation costs of the two-day workshops we conduct once in three months. This also includes the cost of bringing in the experts..

You may send Cheques / Demand Drafts / Bank Draft in the name of "Sigaram".

It is the cause that matters and not the medium. If you would like to take up such an activity in your neighborhood or some other location, we are more than willing to help/support/guide. Please get in touch with us.

If you are interested in Sigaram click here : www.sigaramtrusts.blogspot.com

Our Plans :-

Plans for the year 2010 - 11
Here is what we at Sigaram Foundation want to achieve through the next one year.

· We were focusing only on Sultanpet Block for the past years. This year we wish to expand our activities to Coimbatore also. This project will be launched in the month of July.

· Sigaram Foundation, in its new project, will take the students of VI Standard, instead of VIII standard since it will be easy to mould the students in their early stage.

· Sigaram’s workshop activities for these children will be focused on "Attitude and Personality Development".

· Apart from this, we will continue our activities in Sultanpet Block for the existing children.

· We are planning to appoint 2 persons to work full time for Sigaram Foundation.

Each year, Sigaram’s plan has been based on the advice from our Advisory Board and this year is no exception. Our advisory board felt that we need to scale up our activities and the plans have been devised on this basis.

We hope to implement these plans with the help and support of people like you.