Site Visit Report 2008
Project: Pudiyador ,Urapakkam, Kancheepuram District, Chennai, Tamil Nadu
Visit done by: Karthik Sathiyamoorthy,
This is the second site visit to the project Pudiyador done during June 2008. Please refer to the site visit report 2007,done by then Asha Volunteer Divya Srinivasan, for complete details on the project including the founders, the inspiration, and the specific goals of the project.
This is a follow-up report confirming the active status of the project and the improvements in the facilities of the particular centre-Urapakkam.
Pudiyador meaning “a new beginning” in Tamil started to be a concept that can be translated to different locations. Now there are three centers operating in different regions of Chennai and its surrounding areas. The three centers are located in Ramapuram, Urapakkam and Adyar. The funding is provided for the Urapakkam center that is more financially needy. The site visit was done only to the Urapakkam centre for which money is provided. The money is spent for improving the infrastructure and operating expenses to employ full time staff and teachers. From 2007 to 2008 the center has new roof replacing the previous asbestos roofing that gets really hot during summer. There is also a new bathroom/toilet facility within the center.
The center can be visualized as an after school that motivates children to go to the local government school, has its own tutors for helping the students with their homework in evening and more importantly as a meeting place to inspire the students to sit collectively and engage actively in their after school reading. To attest to the students engaging in arts and crafts actively can be been seen immediately from a visit where the walls are decorated with collage work (from a recent summer activity just few days before my visit) and different artwork using common material like clay, ice-cream sticks and so on that were brilliantly done. The students also pestered me with many questions about their future education, and options which was more refreshing to see.
The facility site visit was done with help from Valli the facilitator for Pudiyador Urapakkam centre.
2009 Update: Valli has stepped down from the role of facilitor to the centre. She recently has a child. Senkathir Srinivasan is the current facilitator for the Urapakkam Centre,
Contact info: , +91 98401 73824