It gives us pleasure in updating you on the happenings in the Oct to Dec quarter of 2012. The focus was on the end semester & mid-year exams, students slogged, and we got them to relax with a 1-day outing.
Academics:
1st & 2nd PU students had their mid-year exams, while the degree students had their odd semester exams. The weeks leading to the exams see feverish activities like joint studies, doubt clearance etc. Many students prefer to come, talk to us, attend classes, and some prefer to slog it out from home.
Few results are out. Girish, a 3rd sem, B.Com student secured 87%, coming from a rural background, he continues to impress with his academics and extra-curricular activities. Pooja, 3rd sem student secured 83.5%, given that she was suffering from severe health issues in the weeks leading to the exam, this is quite a performance. Consolidated results of all students would be posted in the next communication.
Events:
An outing for students to relax, have fun and experientially learn happened on Dec 9th. We took the students to Ramanagara (40 km from Blr) – countryside with lots of hills. We climbed up an hill – Ramadevara betta. We had various games along the way. It was a 1-day event from 7am to 8pm with 85 participants that included current students, few ex-students and volunteers. You can read more about it in the first person account by our students Jhansy (1st BCom) & Pooja(2nd BCom).
Volunteers from FoCh have been organizing a few not directly related FoCh activities. These are celebrating a few festivals at under-previleged homes. We celebrated Diwali at ‘Nali-Kali’ – a residential home for primary school students at Mavalli, and at ‘Kutumba’ – a residential centre, supporting vocational training for physically challenged women on Hennur road. We also celebrated Christmas with Carol singing at ‘Nali-Kali’ and at ‘Vatsalya’ – a residential home for school going girls at Wilson Garden. Please Note: Expenses for these events were shared by the volunteers participating in these events.
Budget Figures:
Earlier outings saw the cost for the event being shared by the volunteers, from this financial year we decided to source all expenses of FoCh from the trust fund. The expenses for the quarter was on the lower side, and we expect the same trend in quarter Q4 too. With admissions for 2013-14 happening in Q2 & Q3, we would have high expenses, so please keep the donations coming.
With 75 students in our roles, the financial for the last quarter in INR is as follows. Opening balance was 65,803. Donations received were 1,21,100, Our expenditure was 63,490 with 41% on the outing, 38% on fees, 10% on food among others. The closing balance is 1,23,413. The need for the current quarter is around 1 lakh. More details in contained in the excel sheet.
Plans & Needs
In academics, the focus in the coming quarter would be the final exams for the PU students. We have 17 students in 1st PU(11th) and 9 students in 2nd PU(12th).
We will be starting our new student identification for 2013-14. We will be contacting government schools(and others) around the mysore road area – the schools to be covered are Govt. high schools in Chikpet, Goodshed road, Chamrajpet and St. Teresa girls high school.
Due to logistic reasons, we couldn’t schedule the medical camp in 2012, we intend to have it sometime this year.
In terms of new volunteers, Ganesh & Kalaivani joined us and ex-students from the 2011-12 B.Com batch Divya & Latha have also been enthusiastically supporting us. We still need more people supporting us with operational, teaching and mentoring activities.
Yes, as always sundays are great days to meet our students & us at St. Teresa school, Chamrajpet, and we look forward to your visit anytime.