Author: Ramanathan Meenakshisundaram

Payir School featured in The Hindu

Posted on by Ramanathan Meenakshisundaram

Our Payir School got featured in ‘The Hindu’ – published on 26/06/18.

Click here to read the complete article

Experts from the article:

‘குழந்தைகளுக்கு இணக்கமான பள்ளிகள் நகரங்களில் மட்டுமே இருக்கும் என்பதும் ஒரு மூடநம்பிக்கைதான். இதை உடைத்து கிராமத்தில் வெற்றிகரமாகச் செயல்பட்டு வருகிறது ஒரு பள்ளி.

‘எனக்கு இப்படி நடந்தால்…’ என்ற பாடம் அந்தப் பள்ளியின் இரண்டாம் வகுப்புக் குழந்தைகளின் பாடப் புத்தகத்தில் இடம்பெற்றிருக்கிறது. அந்தப் பாடத்தில், பாம்பு உள்ளிட்ட உயிரினங்கள் நம்மை நெருங்கினால், அடிபட்டால், யாராவது நம்மை அடித்தால், பெரியவர்கள் யாராவது எதாவது செய்தால் என்பது உள்ளிட்ட அம்சங்கள் விவாதத்துக்குக் கொண்டுவரப்படுகின்றன. இதன்மூலம் பாலியல் தொல்லை உட்படப் பலவற்றை ஏழு வயது குழந்தைகள்கூடப் புரிந்துகொண்டு, அது குறித்துப் பேச முன்வரும் சூழல் பெரம்பலூர் மாவட்டத்தைச் சேர்ந்த தேனூர் கிராமத்தில் உள்ள ‘பயிர்’ பள்ளியில் உருவாக்கப்பட்டிருக்கிறது.

அரசுப் பள்ளிகளில் படிக்கும் குழந்தைகளை வளர்த்தெடுக்க மாலைக் கல்வி மையமாக ஆரம்பிக்கப்பட்டதுதான் ‘பயிர்’ அமைப்பு. பிறகு மாவட்ட நிர்வாகத்துடன் இணைந்து அரசுப் பள்ளி மாணவிகளுக்கான சிறப்புக் கல்வித் திட்டமும் அறிமுகப்படுத்தப்பட்டது. அதையடுத்துப் பெரம்பலூர் மாவட்ட அரசுப் பள்ளிக்கான சுகாதாரம், உடல்நலம் தொடர்பான பணிகளும் முன்னெடுக்கப்பட்டன. 2014-ல் இந்தத் திட்டங்கள் அனைத்தையும் முறைப்படுத்தி ‘பயிர்’ பள்ளிக்கூடமாகச் செயல்படத் தொடங்கியது….

Click here to read the complete article

Payir at Chennai Marathon 2017

Posted on by Ramanathan Meenakshisundaram

Our active volunteer Suresh Babu and his team of runners Ran in Chennai Marathon in Dec 2017 and helped raise funds for Children’s Talents Carnival at Payir. The Talents carnival benefits students from 18 Government Schools in Perambalur district.

Payir also supplied 20,000 nutrition laddus to the runners in the Marathon, with the help of Suresh Babu and Chennai Runners

Our sincere thanks to Suresh and his team, and Chennai Runners !

Cisco India celebrates Diwali with Nutritious Laddus from Payir

Posted on by Ramanathan Meenakshisundaram

Cisco India in Bangalore came forward to support Payir by ordering our ‘Thinai’s Laddu’ Diwali Celebration pack of sweets, as Diwali gift for their employees. These laddus are:

  • Made out of naturally grown, selectively picked ingredients  – Millets, Sesame, Peanuts, Jaggery, Dried Fruits
  • Our traditional sweets which our ancestors relished and passed on to us
  • Healthy and nutritious – a guilt free way to relish them
  • Help conserve water, which is a precious commodity these days, as millets take only 30% water used for rice and wheat

Our team was super excited with the order and executed it to perfection. We sincerely thank our active volunteer Ms. Subashree Krishnan for supporting us through out and to the wonderful Cisco team of Ms.Deena Suchitha, Mr.Shiv and others for their support.

We hope to reach these laddus to more people. Our Celebration pack of sweets can be ordered for your home and office events, family functions and as a gift to that special person. Please reach us at: thoorigai@payir.org for your orders

Here are some pictures of our team executing this order.

      

Our employees making the laddus in our Rural cottage industry setup in Thenur village, TamilNadu. All our employees maintain strict hygiene while handling the laddus. The production room is thoroughly cleaned the previous evening, for production to start in the morning. All employees wash their hands and legs, wear hair and face masks and hand gloves during the entire process

 

The laddus are laid to cool and dry, under a fan running on solar power.

 

Packing the laddus into boxes

 

The laddus are packed in boxes and ready to be shipped

 

The boxes are loaded in the delivery van. Our team traveled from Thenur to Bangalore amidst the rains, for the delivery of the boxes. Standing (L to R): Our co-founder Ram, Murugan, Sekhar and Senthil (Laddu unit in-charge)

 

Our Laddu unit in-charge Senthil was beaming with pride when he personally hand delivered the Celebration pack of sweets to Ms. Deena Suchitha, at the Cisco office.

Payir wins “Best NGO” award at Juniper Networks

Posted on by Ramanathan Meenakshisundaram

       

Juniper Networks, a US based company with a branch office in Bangalore, conducts a 10K run every year for its employees, which also includes carnival style fun rides and games for the entire family. As part of the 10K run registration, Juniper’s employees also contribute a certain amount towards NGOs working for social causes. Juniper matches this contribution and adds more and provides it to NGOs selected by their employees based on internal voting

For this year’s Juniper Run 2017, Baskar Shanmugam, an active volunteer of Payir Trust, captured the essence of all the work Payir does in a 60 sec video and nominated Payir Trust for this award. Based on employees voting and internal committees selection, Payir Trust won the 1st prize for “Best NGO” award. Payir’s co-founder Ramanthan and volunteer Baskar received the cheque from Juniper Networks Senior Official, Varun Nair at a colourful event on Sept 10th, 2017.

The award winning video can be viewed here.

Thank You Juniper Networks for the trust in Payir, we will make sure this prize money is utilized to serve the community even better.

Payir Campus Powered by Solar Electricity

Posted on by Ramanathan Meenakshisundaram

At Payir, while we were connected to the public electric grid supply, we constantly faced power failure and extreme power fluctuations ranging from 130V to 270V. Many of our lab equipment(s), critical health care equipment(s), food processing machines, sewing machines, computers, lightings and even the UPS have been either damaged in the past or out of use many times due to voltage issues, making our work ineffective and inefficient. We wasted lot of time, effort and money in repairs. More importantly, for the 30 children (girls & boys) who reside here in our campus, darkness was certainly a safety issue.

Considering this, Payir has been wishing for Solar Electrification of all our facilities, so we can have Uninterrupted, Clean, Renewable, Green source of Energy and can protect our equipment, and provide a safe residential home for our children

Payir approached the CSR Board of Amrutanjan Health Care Limited, Chennai, and briefed the need. The Amrutanjan Management magnanimously approved Rs. 12 Lakhs out of the total estimate of Rs.14.8 lakhs to convert the entire electrical load to Solar (10 KW) at Payir campus. The remaining amount was funded graciously by Seattle Tamil Sangam (STS), USA, and Friends of Payir, USA,

      

The solar installation activities began at Payir Trust starting from 16th March, 2017. We worked with VillageReS – Village Renewable Energy System India Private Limited, who were reasonable on pricing and have a track record of working with solar installation for many NGOs, using best quality materials. Mr. Ramsubbu of VillageReS did preliminary site analysis on March 17th and purchase process started on 20th. After the panels and batteries arrived, frame fabrication work started on April 3rd and erection and final connection to different loads were complete on April 20th as planned.

Today we are running 100% on solar power, not drawing from the fluctuating grid power. The first biggest luxury is FANS – for the first time, they are running continuously at a constant speed, providing much needed relief from the peak hot summer weather (45C)! In the night, our children are no longer scared, and feel safe and comfortable. Our staff in all units (school, health center, nutrition, tailoring unit) are able to work efficiently without worrying about power cuts or machine repairs.  These days we get to know of power shutdowns only when we see the village in the dark at night!

This was also a great learning experience for us, especially our residential children. Our boys Mayavan and Surya are now on their way to become future Solar Engineers!

We are grateful to Amrutanjan Health Care Limited, Chennai for their trust in us and sponsoring this project. We are also thankful to Seattle Tamil Sangam (STS), Seattle, USA and Friends of Payir, USA for providing the additional funding to complete this project.

       

 

Payir at TCS10K run in Bangalore

Posted on by Ramanathan Meenakshisundaram

 

14 members from Payir Team participated in the TCS10K run in Bangalore on 21/05/2017. The team was comprised of our core team members and staff members from Payir, volunteers and 3 children. A team of 10 members traveled 350KM on 20th for this event, from 45C hot Thenur village to a rain lashing 28C  Bangalore.

                                       

The team had brought costumes hand made by the staff and children of Payir, with a lot of enthusiasm. This was a BIG event for them and they spent hours in preparing for the event. They came up with the theme of “Eco-friendly Vs Non-Eco friendly” products. All members got dressed up at 5:45 am on the day of the run, and went on stage at 630am. They proudly won the 2nd prize in the costume event. Click here for the news article.

      

The entire team finished the run, and it was good fun. It was an amazing experience for the entire team:

  • We collected Rs.5.8 lakhs in fund raising
  • Won the Sakthi award from India Cares Foundation
  • Won 2nd prize in the Jabong costume contest
  • Was a nice outing for all our staff from Thenur village, for many of them this was their 1st visit to Bangalore

This event has been a tremendous confidence booster for our staff – they are excited that from a Rural background, they can compete in Urban / International competitions and win. That is the most important achievement for us! All this will not be possible without support from our well wishers. Thanks for your continued Trust in us !

If you plan to contribute to support us in our effort, please use the following links:

India: http://icfn.in/tcsworld10k/fundraiser/ram/ (or) write to us at info@payir.org for online transfer details

US: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=L6L7VS9BR5HLN

1 year of our Residential Center

Posted on by Ramanathan Meenakshisundaram
RSTC Children in 2016

 

RSTC children in 2017. We are very happy to see positive changes in their education levels, healthy growth, creative abilities and overall development.

 

At Payir, we constantly come across children who fall out of school and leave schooling as early as age 5. Most of these children are rescued from child labour and abuse.

In June 2016, we came face to face in handling such a child, when, per the recommendation of the District Collector, a shepherd boy rescued from bonded labour, was placed under our custody. The boy was physically in a fragile state, scared of company, with strong feeling of being exploited by adults. Our teachers took this as a challenge and worked with him, to bring in a change with this boy towards his life, learning levels and with his health. This opened a new realization and conviction among our teachers, that we can bring an amazing transformation with these children. And this took shape as the Residential Center for deprived children. And in no time, we are with 30 children in the age from 5-14 years.

Payir is running a Residential Special Training Center (RSTC) – a residential bridge learning center for these children, to bring back their childhood and put a smile on their face.

We provide safe living space, nutritious food, and bridge learning programs for children to catch up to their age appropriate education levels. We also engage them with life skill activities like proper discipline, behavioral education, kitchen gardening, basic vocational training, and many other activities which help them in normal life skills. We have a set of staff, who are specially trained to work with these students, so they become their mentors.

Any support you can provide to these children will go a long way in making them amazing individuals. It only takes Rs.3200 per month to support a child.

If you are interested, please write to us at: info@payir.org

Payir at MCCI 2017 “Conference on CSR – The Emerging Trends”

Posted on by Ramanathan Meenakshisundaram

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The Madras Chamber of Commerce an Industry (MCCI) conducted a “Conference on CSR – The Emerging Trends” on 3rd March, 2017 at Hotel Crowne Plaza, TTK Road, Chennai.

The objective of this year’s Conference was to have an update on  the Emerging trends in CSR and to know how some of the Corporates and NGOs are effectively taking the agenda forward. It was attended by CSR representatives from 50+ companies and representatives from many NGOs.

Our founder Senthil Gopalan was one of the Guest Speakers and Presented: “ NGO Show Cases – activities of Payir“. It was well appreciated by the audience.

We thank Ms. K.Saraswathi, Secretary General of MCCI and Ms. Jayalakshmi of MCCI for inviting us and helping us connect with CSR from various companies.

 

Payir is participating in the TCS 10K Run in Bangalore

Posted on by Ramanathan Meenakshisundaram

Payir is one of the NGO/CSO partners of the premier TCS 10K Run in Bangalore on May 21, 2017 (Sunday). Please join us in the Run and support a social cause.

Your valuable contributions will be fully utilized in our activities towards Rural Empowerment – mainly towards our Residential Children’s Bridge Program, Child Education, Child Nutrition, Rural Health and Agricultural Initiatives. All contributions are tax exempt under section 80G in India.
Please click the link below to donate online for Payir Trust:


Payir Trust