Free Eye Camp and Cataract Operations

On Saturday, September 17th  the School hosted an eye camp in conjunction with the famous Aravind Eye Hospital from Madurai. We provide the organisation, advertising and all of the logistics, while the hospital provides the medical staff. 97 people attended the camp and 22 were admitted to hospital for cataract surgery. Many others received spectacles. This is something we do every year, and many people have greatly benefited. 

Having fun learning the concept of zero.

Activity-based learning

The children are making good progress with activities which engage them in the learning process and hold their attention, so they both enjoy their lessons and learn more readily. 

Enjoying Learning

The attendees of our preschool enjoy learning with a variety of fun educational activities.

Mountain View School for the rural poor now OPEN!

Our preschool for poor village children officially opened on 15th June, which is the beginning of a new school year in India. It is an English medium school and our goal is to set these children on the road to success through modern activity-based learning methods, taking advantage of the extraordinary capability to learn that children have up to the age of five or six. The human brain develops more rapidly between birth and age five than during any other subsequent period, and appropriate, hands-one, interactive, educational activities contribute dramatically to a child's development.

Healthy Mother and Baby Meetings

We continue to work in local villages to address the serious problems of anemia, low birth weight babies, unregistered births, insanitary practices etc. These meetings educate these women on these issues and also help them to avail of government programs designed to assist them; they are encouraged to get their medical checks, have safe births, follow vaccination schedules, breast feed, and provided with lots of useful information.

Women's Day Celebration

To honour, appreciate and encourage the village women for their service and sacrifice to the family and community, a Women’s Day program was conducted in a local village on 9.3.2015. The importance of health and education of women was motivated in this program. The anganwadi teacher participated and explained the governments benefit schemes available for women. Gender equality was also encouraged.

Haemoglobin Camp for Adolescent Girls

Anemia, a ‘silent killer’ among women in India: India has among the highest number of cases of anemia in the world. Indian Council of Medical Research and District Level Household Surveys have shown that prevalence of anemia is very high (ranging between 80->90%) in preschool children, pregnant and lactating women and adolescent girls. Low birth weight infants, young children and women of childbearing age are particularly at risk of anemia. Anemia begins in childhood, worsens during adolescence in girls and gets aggravated during pregnancy. Adolescent girls, who constitute a sizable segment of its population form a vulnerable group and are at a greater risk of morbidity and mortality. It is the shaping period of life when maximum amount of physical, psychological and behavioural changes take place. This is a vulnerable period in the human life cycle for the development of nutritional anemia.

We organised haemoglobin checks for adolescent girls in local villages and arranged for trained lab technicians to come and administer the tests. None of the girls had normal haemoglobin levels. All of the girls received advice and were referred to the government hospital and local village health centres for treatment and nutritional support.

Adolescent Awareness Programs

We held another adolescent girls awareness program in a nearby village. About 25 girls attended. We found that they were very unprepared for the physical and emotional changes that accompany adolescence and unaware of health issues. The program included the basic health ,  hygiene and  menstrual hygiene, hemoglobin level, importance of education, gender equality and  early marriage issues. They actively participated in the program and asked various health related questions.

HIV AWARENESS CONTINUES

Usilampatti block  has a  high prevalence  HIV infection. RPI has taken steps to increase awareness about HIV in the intervention area. As a continuation of this program,  one more HIV awareness program was conducted. 

The session covers the basic information about HIV, mode of transmission, testing facilities, prevention and treatment. They asked various questions like marriage and child birth of PLHIV. It was explained about ART drugs, opportunistic infection management, CD4 test and prevention of parent to child transmission. They said hereafter they will not stigmatize PLHIV. They said they received knowledge about HIV through this session and it  is very useful to them.

Swachh Bharat Clean Up Campaign in our Local Villages

We launched 'Swachh Bharat" in our local villages. The Village Administrative Office joined us for the occasion, as well as the head mistress of the government school,  and the area near and around the government school was cleaned up. Lots of people joined in to help. This will be an on-going program which seeks to introduce permanent changes and solutions for cleaning up the villages.

The Village Administrative Office kicked off the clean up by having a go with the 'whipper snapper,'-a quick efficient way to clear the overgrown grass.

Tuition Students Celebrate Pongal, (The Harvest Festival)

RPI has celebrated the Pongal festival in a traditional manner with staff, children and community people on 14.1.15. More than 60 members attended the program. Pongal ( a dish made with rice and juggary) and sugarcane was distributed to the participants. A Pongal speech was given by the assistant director, Mr. Victor, and Program Overseer, Mr. Nelson. The staff conveyed their wishes to the participants.

Christmas Festivities

 More than 120 students and all the staff  participated in a Christmas celebration on Christmas eve. A formal Christmas speech was given by PCO. Then cakes were distributed to the participants. Cultural activities like dances and songs were performed by the students, who had lots of fun and expressed their gratitude for the program.

Diabetes and TB awareness

These awareness programs may save lives. TB and diabetes are both serious problems in our area--often left untreated until too late, with devastating results. We have held awareness programs in several villages to cover these topics.

Assistance for Two More Anganwadis (Nursery Schools)

We are expanding our assistance to village nursery schools, and recently we were able to provide educational supplies and games to two more village schools. If you would like to assist with this program, please visit the needs page of our website for ideas on items that you can order.