Last year, the CSS Foundation supported the scholarships of 351 students. In this year 2009, we have increased the number of students to 383. The main objective of the scholarship program is:

• To identify children excelling in academic, from low-income and marginalized families.
• To provide these children with moral support.
• To ensure these students receive holistic education and become self-reliant, responsible individuals.
• To discover and nourish their talents.

This months report covers the following activities held in various places:

Glass Painting Workshop

A Glass Painting Workshop was organised in Chennai at Ms.Malini Sampath's residence for the State Level Trainers on 18th of Jan 2009 for 30 candidates who came from Vandavasi, Koovathur, Vembakkam, Soolagiri, Banavaram & Nemili of Thiruvannamalai, Kanchipuram & Vellore districts respectively.

The candidates participated were enthusiastic and more interested to get trained on how to do glass painting. Ms. Malini Sampath, trained the cadidates by giving them a demo and a step by step training on how to do glass painting. Children chose their own design of creativity to paint in the glass and at the end of the session, there were a collection of glass paintings consisting various designs like Flowers, Parrot, Peacock, Donald Duck etc. Children enjoyed the entire learning process and were very happy to see the outcome when it was completed. Photos in the Gallery Section >>

Workshop for the Scholarship Program

After this Glass Painting Workshop, 3 members and 1 full timer are training our students from different blocks on Glass Painting. This idea has been initiated by our State Co-coordinator Hari Kumar for the Scholarship program.

On 25th January, Glass Painting Workshops were started for children from Nemeli and Banavaram where 68 and 45 students underwent this training respectively.
Again on 1st February, same Glass Painting Workshop was conducted for children from Koovathur, Vembakkam and Vandavasi. There were 25, 46 and 35 students respectively who participated in the Workshop. Again a similar workshop has been planned for children from Chennai and Soolagiri.

Collection of Report Cards

Half yearly examination has been conducted and completed. 330 students have written the exam and 200 report cards have been collected so far. By 10th February the plan is to collect all the report cards of 338 students. Simultaneously Mark sheets will be added to the data by 10th February.

Mentors Meet

Mentors meet is organized twice a year. All the mentors have been communicated through letters. We have 44 mentors for 47 students. There are 39 students from Vembakkam who are studying in 6th and 8th class. Remaining students who have mentors are from Latur and Koovathur block. All of them have been informed. 3 Mentors are from abroad, they have been informed through email.

With reference to our earlier report, Mentor Mr. Srinivasalu met our Scholarship Program student Ramachandran in his village on 25th January. Our block co-ordinator Vijayalakshmi helped them in organizing this meeting.

Distribution of Materials

Previously in the month of October and December 2008 we had distributed Science Kits and World Atlas Map books to students. Students said that the materials were very useful. Later some of the students have expressed their disability in reading English fluently. Hence English to Tamil Dictionary was distributed to the students. 338 Students studying in 6th to 8th class received the Atlas in the month of January 09. All these happened as per what was scheduled.