Palayanur

Demographics

School name

Venu Udayar Middle School

Location

Palayanur village
Tiruvarur district
Tamil Nadu.

Nearest railway stations

Tiruvarur junction
Kumbakonam junction
Tip: While Tiruvarur is much closer than Kumbakonam, there are far less trains to Tiruvarur.

Nearest bus stops

Major bus stations: Tiruvarur, Mannargudi
Local bus stop: Palayanur (on Vadapathimangalam to Mannargudi route, and closer to Vadapathimangalam)
Tip: Though Tiruvarur is closer than Mannargudi, the difference is small.

Description

Background

Started in 1932 by an Indian independence activist, Venugopalasamy Udayar, as a non-profit school. Originally started as a thinnai pallikoodam (verandah school) for lower classes, it has developed into a middle school now, offering classes up to 8th level. Its day-to-day working is currently being managed by his son, Nandagopal Udayar. Since the school is not a government school, its expenses are covered by a combination of outside donations, managing family's own properties and some government aids. The village is primarily (>90%) dependent on agriculture. Due to recent changes in rainfall patterns<ref>http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl2106/stories/20040326003103500.htm</ref>, the economic conditions of the village families have suffered a lot - so much so that the mid-day meals provided at the school is one of the biggest incentives for most children to come to school, since its their only solid meal for the day.

Infrastructure

The school recently moved into a newly constructed building. The place has electricity for most parts of the day and has access to a telephone line. It does not have an internet yet, but can be obtained with relative ease once the computers are ready.

Looking for

Looking for sponsors to support the cost of OLPC laptops and for donors willing to donate their used G1G1 laptops. See below for contacts and collection centers.

Why this school?

Apart from being the kind of school that OLPC aims to target, it also has a long track record of a motivated and sincere management. The managing family is committed to bring this project to the school and to give students the access to the web of knowledge. I know this for a fact because I am closely related to them (with founder, Venugopalasamy Udayar, being my maternal grandfather). The family had recently arranged for donations to fix the decades-old building and is not able to gather any more donations to buy OLPC laptops, except for one or two.

Also, the Tamil Nadu government's recent introduction<ref>http://www.ssa.tn.nic.in/CurrActivities-A.htm</ref><ref>http://www.unicef.org/india/education_2276.htm</ref> of Activity Based Learning (ABL) has proved<ref>http://beta.thehindu.com/news/states/tamil-nadu/article49381.ece</ref> to be very effective. But the ABL method has been implemented in classes 1 to 5 only and by using rhymes, song, drama and charts. The introduction of OLPC laptops in higher classes will help to continue the ABL method in these higher classes too and by using more effective higher technologies.

Contacts and collection centers

• Contact in Europe and Coordinator of this project:

Guhan Sukumaran
PhD student (Theoretical physics)
17 Endenicher Allee, Room:3315
Bonn 83115, Germany.
Email: guhan.web {at gmail dot com}
Visiting Card: click here

• Contact in North America:
  

Dr. Astha Singhal
Resident, National Institutes of Health (NIDCR)
11400 Georgetowne Drive
Potomac, Maryland 20854, USA.

• Contact in India:
  

Nandagopal Udayar
Palayanur village (Koothanallur via)
Tiruvarur district, Tamil Nadu.