Friends, Thanks to everyone of you who expressed your views.
Let me quickly make clear some points: 1. This is not a Charity project but a non-profit industry. (Only difference is that we want to create a new trend in present day Orphanage and Old age home set up. No Orphanage should depend on outside contributions and people who work in the Orphanage should treat it like their own family and be a part of family, as an earning member not just for himself but for the family) Chandra, we will definitely give them a good name. Until then they are Homes only not Orphanage or an Old Age Home. 2. Research efforts After completing the Education work (in August), if most of us can concentrate on this project, we can do it. Not a problem. 3. Orphan and Old Age Home Combo Swayamkrushi.org - Manjula garu has set up Homes for Differently Abled (Mentally Retarded) people. Naren of Infosys told about this to me long back. There is a home in this fashion. UVNK Raju of We Will Help You group told me that there is a senior citizen home near Aaram Apna Ghar and they usually do not accept any contributions and send the donors to Children Home. There are many Orphanages and Old Age Homes in Hyderabad itself which we can study. Money We will provide the seed money for two years to sustain it and by the end of fifth year, we should break even. Later the house will sustain on its own without any contribution from anyone's end. Divya, if we commit, we commit. This is what we expect from our donors. As ours is a regd. organization and by the time we take a decision to start this project, we will get Tax Exemption too. Whoever are willing to commit for this project will give their two year contribution at once or else in two instalments. We accept only such contributions for this project. However small the amount is. As you said, we can have a 'Yes', 'No' answer from everyone and with all the 'Yes' answers we will ask how much they afford in a month. Say for example, a member says that he can contribute Rs. 500 per month, he should give Rs. 12000 at once or Rs. 6000 two times. Research Academic I do not mean to shun the Maths, Science and Social Sciences to the children. Definitely every subject has to be taught. But what and how we taught is where we are going to make the difference. Coming to how many languages a child can learn, they can easily learn 5 languages. Most of the people who migrates to different cities learn languages easily. So learning would never be a problem provided we teach them better. I think basic principles of Languages are same. Curricular: Sowmya, Vani and Dr. Giri can work on this project. Though Vani not yet aired her views, I know that she is interested in Education. They will study the present day curriculum and will come up with their views and suggestions. Lalitha garu in US would be a major contributor in this Research. She herself prepared lessons and we can see on her blog. http://onamaalu.wordpress.com/ Extra-Curricular: <We need volunteers here.> We have to ask Karthik if he is interested to take this work. He is also interested in Education and he is closely associated with Mehdipatnam school. Managing Homes: We need to visit every orphanage and old age home. We can explore the possibilities of tying up with Santhwana group whose area of work is visiting Orphanages only. No matter what we need to have many volunteers who visit the homes. We need at least one day strict allocation from our members for these visits. Volunteers: I can take up this responsibility. Dr. Bala earlier expressed that he is interested in visiting orphanages. Sangeetha too expressed interest. Small Scale Industry: Our Ravi wants to pursue MBA and if his main subject matches with this topic, may be he will chip in. We also can explore the possibility of working with CSIM. CSIM trains entrepreneurs on sustainability. Through them we can get to know several small scale industries. There are many govt. departments and NGOs who work with small scale entrepreneurs and we can take their help. I think we should first zero in on few trades and explore them only. Research on the viabilities and problems: I think our US team can chip in here. Divya, I too have many apprehensions. I haven't come to a conclusion on whether it should be strictly a boy home or a girl home or kids home. (To be frank I will not vote for a strictly boy home. I am interested to vote for a girl home, but security would be a problem. The same concern is for the kids also. But I strongly feel we should not opt for a unisex home. When we say 'Home', there should be both boys and girls and we should run the home with such notion. My idea of the count is 25. To make it equal, 26 - 13 girls, 13 boys, to start with. What age group should they be, is a matter of discussion again. (Of course all my views are for matter of discussion). I prefer 5 to 7 age group. This is a good age. They are neither too small too big. We have tremendous support from our Telugu Bloggers Community. Very soon am going to meet the Hyderabad members and we will see how many volunteers will come forward. The end of all education should be building up a Character. I also read that Education is not just about learning something but creating a desire and enthusiasm to learn. This is what our motto should be. I hope I answered majority of the questions. I hope at least we have some idea now. We are waiting responses from our active members. Lets see. I mailed to few other senior persons and once I get responses from them, I will share here. This is a brainstorming period or Feasibility Study period. Who are interested to volunteer in this Feasibility Study, please reply with your choice. Thank you. with regards, Prasanthi. http://prasanthi.wordpress.com
