EFF is back again with assorted team: motivating the students

Finally yes!we are here this year to discuss with you about the EFF trip to country side, Gandweed ZPH School. Once in every three months we visit the school to check the over all development and progress among the students, but this time we were late by one month because of the formation of Telangana and Andhra states and hours of power cuts especially in villages. Due to which we could not take the virtual classes regularly.
Every visit of ours, we introduce new set of volunteers from various professions, by doing so, students, get excited to see new faces who could express their intentions, motivating and encouraging the pupils by inserting corporate play schools methods of teaching, rather than the routine presentation teaching.

Volunteers from different backgrounds implant their teaching skills and involve the students in activities such as classroom games, speaking activities, quiz competition, reading, social issues etc... This time we have concentrated only the speaking skills of the students because we wanted to evaluate how well they are able to cope up with English and in their communication skills. The topics that we have emphasized this time were; Role of News paper in our life, what is your aim in life, Story telling and above all last not the least, Eradication of child marriage etc....

Improvisation

At the end of the day, when we took the summary class wise, it was impressive! The virtual classroom teaching helped most of the students to perform well in all categories of subjects, social issues, general knowledge, speaking activities, current affairs, and English grammar and so on. Over all it was amazing to learn that students have put in lot of interest in learning to speak in English. The different methods of teaching especially, to those vernacular medium students of classes VI and a very small number of students from other classes needs an extra concentration individually, to help them shine like other students. Who are already in that stream, in a nut shell, lots of efforts to be put in with students to overcome the fear of stage and speech. Perhaps help them to take daring steps to disclose their talents standing in front of the class and audience.

Vehemently speaking, while the presentation of Hockey Sticks along with items relating to them and some Educational Literature books were awarded for the students for the excellent performance in the activities that were conducted by the EFF.We noticed that there were lot of people standing  at the school main gate and some of them sitting on the walls while others standing witnessing the proceedings taking place in the school premises. Out of their anxiety and excitement, we could hear  them clapping in joy along with the students cheering the students who are presented with gifts. We the EFF are happy to bring this awareness among the residents of Gandweed Village and are very pleased with the encouragement they offered to the students.

This school visit has created awareness: In student's performances, and how we need to work with them in the areas they need to be polished to make an improvement in their progress.

On behalf of EFF, we sincerely thank all the Purpletalk employees and others who supported the achievers and made the children happy at the end of the day. We hope to get the same support and encouragement from all of you, in the future too. We thank the school management for cooperating with us in all errands.

Election Fever

With the 16^th general elections coming ahead, every party is busy to raise their flag as high as they can. Media is working on the exit polls, airing big fights and debates to increase their TRPs. Farmers and daily labours gave a short break for their work to campaign with the party members. Of course, they are getting good pay package from each party. Senior citizens are debating on – is it BJP or Congress or AAP or something else who is going to rule our 1.2 billion people… This summer is heating up more with the election fever everywhere.

Election manifesto is the key thing in any election campaign. Parties are working hard on their manifestos to woo the voters. Sometime ago, I heard that in Tamilnadu, a party’s manifesto include ‘free color TV’ for every family. In A.P. a party has come up with Rs.1000 salary/month to the economically backward families in their manifesto. Isn't it crazy! whatever, the party needs votes and get into the seat to rule.

To catch-up this heat, I tried a small activity on ‘Elections’ with the middle school pupils of Red Cross Govt Girls High School at Masab Tank, Hyd. Each student has to come up with a unique party name, symbol and manifesto to contest in the elections. 

Here are some nominees -

Name: Sirisha

Class: 7

Party name: M.G. Party

Party symbol: Tree

Manifesto: Free electricity for every family, provides pensions for senior citizens, jobs for 10th pass pupils, free medical treatment for the poor, scholarships for the economically backward.

Name: Keerthi Priya

Class: 7

Party name: Praja Yudham (Public War)

Party symbol: Girl and boy symbol

Manifesto: Mineral water supply for every family. A cycle for every student to go to school. Special act on girl protection. Free education in private schools. One TV per family. Will stop corruption and ban alcohol.

Name: Zaitoon 

Class : 7

Party name: Rythu Seva (Farmers service)

Party symbol: Rice

Manifesto: Free houses, medicines, education, a salary of Rs.200/month to farmers.

Name: Nikitha
Class : 7
Party name: Please save plant
Party symbol: Plant
Manifesto: Free - ration, drinking water supply, electricity, admission, bags & books for the poor. Renovate roads and maintain it regularly.

Name: G. Pooja
Class: 7
Party name: Water party
Party symbol: Rose
Manifesto: Free rice, 11 hours electricity for farmers, free jobs, a salary of Rs.5000/month to the economically backward families.




Every contestant is wooing their voter with freebies. Obviously, Indian mentality has tuned to Free goods, subsidized services, reservations for caste and creed etc etc. We see our country's progress until or unless our rigid mind set transforms.


Education For Free team wishes every nominee a big luck! Public will decide the fate of each candidate.
Cast your vote for a better governance.
Happy vote day to all the citizens of India.

Annual Visit

                              

This time the visit to ZPH School, Gandweed came after a long wait as the dates kept changing due to certain circumstances. Finally we left on a very special day, Valentine’s Day! Until the last moment, we weren't sure how many volunteers were accompanying us to the school but to our surprise, we had 7 volunteers who were willing to take part in it and celebrate Valentine’s Day with the children. And that made this trip even more special. We as a team were able to make a fun filled educational day for the kids. For a change, they were not bored about having to sit in the classroom but were rather excited about the activities and the learning time.

When we made our first visit to this school, we had noticed that the students were very poor in speaking and reading English, but after a year of tutoring them through the Virtual Classroom we noticed that there is a lot of improvement in their speaking, reading and writing skills now. It was really amazing to see the growth in the students. In fact each of the volunteers report regarding the performance of the students development was satisfactory. Most of the students this time volunteered to participate in all the activities including giving little speeches on the stage.

But there were still a few students who needed personal care and individual attention to overcome their fear and shyness, at least for that day. We are hoping that the schools would continue to encourage the students to be aware and eager to learn.

Volunteers Report:

This was my second trip to this School. The first time I was accompanying the team but this time I was entrusted with the responsibility of teaching the standard 9^th EM students. To my surprise the topic was on “DOWRY”. In response to the teaching, I got wonderful opinions of various kinds from the students but most importantly their opinion on how the Dowry system might be gradually going away from their homes and the society. The students participated in different activities like quiz, speeches, writing and reading. Most of them performed very well and were very well behaved as well. I had a wonderful time and experience with the students and the team of volunteers too.-         Vinai David

This was my first visit to the school and without a thought it was amazing trip and I had a good time with the kids. I was given class 8^th EM and a few activities like a written test, discussion about the Dowry system, running dictation and storytelling. It was a fun time and also very educational for them. Few of the kids especially among the boys were gems! They were very active and enthusiastic especially Vinay, Bharath and Manikanta. Girls on the other side, with a little more encouragement and support can perform very well too.

One request is that teachers should encourage the kids in their respective area of interests as I had come across one boy, Rama Krishna who was very talented in drawing. There might be a lot of hidden talents among the kids. Few were very excited about rendering the movie dialogues as well which proves their confidence and no stage fear, such people should be encouraged too. On the whole it was a fun time for me too as a volunteer. I would love to be a part of more such activities.-         Hephzibah

Pursuing my B. Tech final year in JNAFAU spa, this was my first visit to the school and I loved it a lot and I really loved the views of EFF and proud to say that I’m part of it. I really had a good time with the children. I attended 7^th EM, the children in the class were really talented –Honestly I was expecting it. I began by conducting an exam in which few children had problems in understanding the question, some of them performed well. After the exam the next activity was “act out an activity, child labor, chain spelling and word game. The children were really good at this chain spelling I really enjoyed the time spent with the class and certainly would want to continue my contribution to EFF.

Few girls in the class were really active: Akhila, Anusha, Shreshta except a few boys remaining all were good as well- They just needed a little push. I loved being a part of it and would love to continue being a part of it.

-  Dinesh

I’m a degree final year student at Nizam’s Degree College. I really like the efforts being made by EFF to provide education for children in remote areas. It was really great that I was part of it, even if it was just for a day! And I would like to be part of it for many more events. I went to two classes and the children were very well behaved.  I was asked to conduct written test and some other activities. The students responded to the best of their ability, though there were many mistakes grammatically while communicating in English, yet they tried to speak in English. So as a whole all of them need to make a lot of improvement in learning the English language and I feel they are all have enough enthusiasm not just to learn the language but to do so much in life.  -      Abhinay

I attended Classes 9th TM, 8^th TM, 7^th TM, and 6th TM. Students were asked to pick up a chit from a set of scheduled topics and Draw on the topic. The students were explained about the purpose of studying, drawing and its use for the academic purposes and career prospects. I Efforts was made towards developing their drawing skills using basic shapes and perspective techniques. It was good to see the progress from my last visit.-      Santosh

This was my second trip to the School. I went to 7^th class and conducted many activities like quiz, speaking skills and reading skills, each student has a vision to improve themselves, but most of the pupils are having stage fear. I felt that an extra attention towards the students will help them train well to be free from stage fear and perform their best in speaking English. If the students are provided with English to Telugu and Telugu to English dictionaries they would perhaps put extra interest in learning and knowing the meaning of the new words and formation of sentences. -       Anupama

This was my first visit and it was a wonderful experience with the kids of class VI EM. Since they are from Telugu medium back ground it was very hard for them to speak and write in English, however they did to the best of their abilities. According to my observation, since they are beginners to English medium, students need to put extra interest especially in learning English language. -     Rakesh

I began my session with 9^th TM students with different activities like: Dowry system, storytelling, running dictation, ‘what is your aim in life’ and G.K. Most of the students were very active in the class and each one tried to speak in English. It was surprising for me to see Telugu medium students speaking in English. During our first visit to this school, after EFF adopted it, the most kids would respond “Madam don’t speak to us in English we don’t understand”. But today I’m proud of their progress.

A huge thank you from EFF  to  our wonderful volunteers for coming with us all the way and doing what you did there! The students were charmed and motivated and we are sure, they will start to dream bigger. Thank you once again for making the first Valentine’s Day so special for the kids!

Dictionaries and general knowledge books were given as gifts  to the students who performed well in the class room activities.