Hot summers and a new school year about to start

Dear Sponsors,

It is now the end of May and the children in the SINAM child sponsorship programme are enjoying their summer holiday along with the rest of the children in South India. In two weeks time they will all take part in a week long summer camp full of games, sports and excursions before returning to school at the end of June for the new school year.

It has now been two years since we started the sponsorship programme, and we cannot thank you enough for your support. As Evelien saw herself during her fieldwork in India, the children are now doing much better than before thanks to the remedial teaching they receive, the school equipment that allows them to go to school, and the help that their families get in the form of soap, shampoo, rice, and other necessary goods. Many of you signed a contract two years ago to sponsor a child for at least to years, and you should by now have received a letter and contract asking you to renew your sponsorship. This time we have also added the possibility of sponsoring your child until he/she has finished school so that the children are assured of sponsorship until they are 18 years old. These children still very much need your help and we greatly appreciate your continued support!

The SINAM child sponsorship programme is not the only one to celebrate an anniversary. SINAM celebrated its silver jubilee this month after 25 years of working with the underprivileged population of the Thiruvannamalai area. Since 1986, the NGO has grown to be one of the largest NGO’s in the area and now has an extremely wide range of projects including more than 500 women’s self help groups, loans to farmers, counselling services, and of course the child sponsor programme. SINAM has also recently inaugurated its new development centre and we would like to thank the members of the Dominicus church in Amsterdam for their very generous donation towards much needed toilets for this centre. Toilets are a great luxury for the people who visit this centre not least because most women do not have a toilet at home and usually have to wait until dark to go to the toilet unseen (men are not bound by these strict rules of modesty and can go wherever/whenever they want). The chance to go to the toilet between sunrise and sunset is therefore very welcome to these women!

We look forward to sending you another update after the summer and in the meantime hope that you will have a pleasant and sunny summer!

Best wishes,

 Evelien and Rosanne

 P.S. Please remember to return the signed contract to the address at the bottom of the letter. Thank you!

With Evelien back in our rich and comfortable (yet cold!) world, we wish you all the best for the new year. We hope you have all received SINAM’s new year greeting card, as well as the calender for the coming year. All children were doing well when Evelien left India.

There are two points of interest that are the topic of this quarterly newsletter. Firstly, celebrating Christmas at SINAM, and secondly the opening of SINAM’s new development centre. On December 25, a very important day with us, but a seemingly normal day in India, mr Perumal organized a Christmas celebration for all the sponsorchildren. We all spent the day at the new and later-to-be-finished SINAM development centre, where the theme was ‘sing and dance’. The children as well as the village teachers and Evelien took turns dancing to popular TV songs and singing old village songs. It was simply wonderful to see the happy faces of the children, loudly cheering for each other’s performances. Lunch consisted of chicken biryani and ice-cream. Meat is a very rare luxury in the lives of these children, and provides some much-needed nutrition.

Secondly on January 6, SINAM was able to celebrate the inauguration of the development centre that has been built over the past 2.5 years. It was a struggle to build this office. Funding came in bits and pieces, and over time the price of cement and bricks doubled. Not everything is finished yet, but SINAM has now started to use the large training room, a kitchen to cook food (and hence cut down expenses) during training sessions, two office rooms and guest rooms for volunteers who come on a regular basis now. The inauguration was attended by hundreds of women, who are looking forward to the training that is to be organized here. The training is also used for events with the sponsorchildren.

Over time, we have received several inquiries regarding the ending of their contracts. Most of the sponsors have a contract that runs up to June 2011. By that time, we will send you a new contract, hoping that you will continue the support. The two year expiry date had been put in place because for many it is hard to commit to a longer period than that. However, the child you are supporting will still very much need your help, and so we do ask you to consider prolonging your participation in the SINAM sponsorship programme.

With thanks for all donations so far,

Evelien and Rosanne

– A movie of the dancing can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EQzEURrkMo

Warm greetings from India

Dear Sponsors,

This update comes directly from Tiruvannamalai, there were SINAM and the children of the sponsorship programme are. I have been her for one and half month now, doing fieldwork on environmental education in schools. All the sponsorchildren are doing well, and so is SINAM.

To write you something from my own experience here with regards to the programme, it is the children’s parliament that I have been most impressed with so far. Through this forum, all children that live in one village meet regularly. They have assigned each of themselves a ‘government role’, meaning that each has a responsibility for a particular issue. They meet regularly, at a time and place they themselves decide on, and they take initiatives that are beneficial for the entire village, such as organizing a day where all children in the parliament clean the streets of the village.

This picture shows the new office in construction, where SINAM plans the children will live in the future.

Lastly, SINAM is involved in an initiative to organize a local action of the international 10:10:10 campaign. This campaign consists of local actions all over the world on the 10^th of October 2010 in relation to combating climate change. Here, 5 NGOs – most of which play an important role in my research and I know them well – are facilitating a walk around Tiruvannamalai’s sacred hill (14 kilometers) by children from many schools in Tiruvannamalai. Many students have shown interest and preparations are happening now, which includes for example arranging enough bullock carts to join the walk so children can have a rest on the cart when they get tired during the walk.

I am informing you of this, because funding has been a major problem so far. If you would like to support this initiative, any contribution would be very welcome.

Sunny greetings (although it’s thundering a bit and I expect some monsoon rains to start soon…)

Evelien

Update 4: August 2010

Dear sponsor,
 
Here is another update from our SINAM child sponsorship programme. The Indian school year started again at the end of June, and your support has provided the children with everything that they need in order to attend school including school fees, new note books and stationary. Those children that are new to the program often did not attend school before because they lacked the money for school supplies and were punished quite severely by their teachers if they did not have them. Thanks to your support they are now able to go to school fully equipped and ready to learn. SINAM is also assessing each child’s learning difficulties so that they can be given the right help. Lastly, the children were also given another bag of personal hygiene products (soap, shampoo, tooth-paste etc.) that is often used by the whole family and so helps quite a few people. 
 
Another exciting bit of news is that Evelien is going back to India. She is starting her journey on August 14, and will stay in Tiruvannamalai for 2 months (as well as another two months in December-January). Her main goal is to do research on environmental education, and in addition she would like to see how the children are doing. If you would like to send your sponsorchild something, like a card, she can of course take those with her and personally give them to your child – provided she receives them on August 13 latest (address (temporary): Herengracht 148G, 1015 BW Amsterdam, the Netherlands). She will keep a blog of her activities in India, the webaddress of which she will forward to you in due course.

 

Lastly, there is now a website for the sponsorprogramme, www.sinamsponsorprogramme.wordpress.com. The website contains all updates that have been sent out so far, and in addition there is a lot of information to be found about SINAM, the sponorprogramme in general and additional ways in which you can help SINAM. You can take a look yourself, or use it to inform friends and family about the programme you’re supporting (of course hoping that they’d be interested to join as well!).

Best wishes and enjoy the summer!
 
Evelien and Rosanne

Welcome

Welcome to the website of the SINAM sponsorship programme. SINAM is a rural Indian NGO that helps those who are most in need. One of the activities and the main topic of this website is running a children’s sponsorprogramme. This website explains you what SINAM does and how you can get involved and help!

Below, you find the updates that have been sent to the sponsors of the programme. Please click on each of the headings on the top menu bar to find out more about SINAM, its current needs for support or the options to get involved in the sponsorprogramme yourself.

Update 3: March 2010

Dear Sponsor,
 
Here is an update of the last 3 months of activities at SINAM in India. All the children in Tiruvannamalai are doing well.
 
The children got a medical check-up in February. This was a general check-up where they were also screened for anemia and worms. Those that needed medicines were given them and the children received vitamin tablets. SINAM has also started to keep track of each child’s health using a health chart.
 
Since the children’s home is under construction and the children still all live at home, SINAM has recently given 10kg of rice to the family of each child to ensure a very basic level of well-being and involve the rest of the family in the sponsorship programme.
 
After school tuition is also going well in both villages. The children have final exams this month because their holiday starts in April. The teachers are helping them to prepare for these with mock quizes and extra coaching. Since India has a very test-oriented school system it is quite important for these children to do well in their exams. As an extra motivation to study maths they were also given a geometric stencil to help them draw shapes and learn maths.
 
Currently there is a new Dutch volunteer working at SINAM. On International Mother’s day, which coincided with her birthday, she helped organise a fun activity day for the children filled with dancing, games, music and a festive lunch of chicken Biryani and ice cream. Many of the children rarely eat meat because their parents can’t afford it, so this was a real treat for them. Additonally, SINAM gave both villages skipping ropes, balls, chess boards and other toys for the children to play with.
 
Last, but certainly not least, we would like to congratulate all the students at the International School of Surrey for running in their fun-run in September and raising €1500 euros! This will fully sponsor 2 children for 6 years! Thank you very much for your help!
 
We hope that enjoy these updates. If there is anything else that you would like to hear about, please let us know!
 
Best Wishes,
 
Rosanne Mulder and Evelien de Hoop

Update 2: December 2009

Dear sponsor,

Thank you for your continued support of a child in India.  We have received very enthusiastic emails from SINAM over the past 3 months, and they have also sent us photos that I have attached  Thanks to your sponsorship SINAM was able to do the following things:

Evening Tuition:

SINAM now has 2 trained Teachers on it’s payroll who give evening tuition in both Sadayanodai and Karunthuvampadi, the two small villages where the children live.  During these classes, the children are helped with their school work, and they received extra lessons in life skills and environmental awareness. They are also given time for creative activities like drawing/painting and holding quizes. We are very proud to report that the children have been getting better marks as a result.  India’s education system is very rigid and test oriented and the schools’ quarterly reports on the children’s progress shows remarkable improvement in their weekly tests scores (This was certainly partly due to having the correct school materials!).

Parents / Care takers meeting:

SINAM is conducting parents/carer meetings on a monthly basis where parents are helped and advised on child care, parenting, and sanitation. SINAM’s counselors are also able to help parents with family problems

Personal hygiene and supplies:

Personal hygiene education was given to all the children in Sadayanodai and Karunthuvampadi and the sponsored children were given the following:

– Soap
– Laundry soap
– a Comb
– T-shirts
– Writing materials including Note books, Pens and Pencils, etc.

Children’s day

Lastly, children’s day was celebrated on Nov. 14 everywhere in India in memory of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, who was the first Prime Minister of India.  SINAM celebrated this day by starting a children’s parliament with the aim of promorting leadership skills. A total of 50 children participated in the event, and they were supported by 2 university lecturers and a member of the Children’s Parliament Network who came over specially from the neighbouring city, Vellore. During the programme, the children learnt about child rights and about how to conduct a children’s parliament. They then elected ministers (such as a food minister and education minister, a speaker, etc.) and created a parliament.  News reporters eve came to report on the event!

We are still looking for sponsors for another 18 children, so if you know of anybody who might be interested in sponsoring a child, or you would like to sponsor another child yourself, please don’t hesitate to contact us or to spread the word. Donations are always welcome and feel free to consider giving money to charity during the festive season, or giving half a sponsorship to somebody as a christmas present. The smile on the child’s face would probably be as big as your friend’s smile when they open the present.

Thank you again for your support, and we hope to be able to update you again in a few months time.

Update 1: September 2009

Dear sponsor,

Thank you again for sponsoring a child in South India.  We recently received
news from SINAM that the first month’s money came just in time to be able to
buy the children school materials for the start of their school year which
starts in June.  Some photo’s of this are attached below. From our own
experiences we know that these children rarely have all the school materials
they need. For example, children often came to our English classes without
even a pen because they couldn’t afford one. In our classes we just lent
them materials, but at school they are often punished if they show up
without a pen or pencil and a child will sometimes be beaten simply because
their parents are too poor to be able to buy these things.  Now, thanks to
your help these children have been able to start off their school year with
all the materials they need. Additionally, in the two villages where the
children you sponsor live, there are now two teachers that support the
children with extra tuition in the evening. This tuition motivates the
children and is very important for their future chances.

We are still looking for other sponsors for another 20 children, so if you
know of anybody who might be interested in sponsoring a child, or you would
like to sponsor another one yourself, please don’t hesitate to contact us or
to spread the word.

Thank you for your support, and we hope to be able to update you again in a
few months time.