Nandri Centre Bringing Laughter Joy and Happiness To Our Children

Nandri children having fun!

The Nandri Foundation is committed to the education and development of our children. All our activities are carefully designed to protect and promote the best interests of the child.   An important  part of that is insuring that our young people learn how to play together and have fun!  In the Nandri Centre, we have set up a playground for the children with lots of equipment that they can enjoy after they spend time in educational classes. Towards the end of their day, the children are so excited to go outside and the sound of their laughter fills the air!  It gives them a chance to forget their difficult empoverished lives and just be children having fun with their friends.  After a recent training programme for local children, you could feel the excitement in the air as the day came to an end and they could finally run to the playground!   In the words of  Jerald, our Chief Operating Officer  “The children forget everything and they are in their own world.  The campus is filled with laughter, joy and happiness”.  When the evening came to a close, the children were sad to tear themselves away from the playground and  leave –  but the Nandri centre will always be a place that our young people will remember with love, a place of positivity, education  and fun and they will long to return time and time again.  

Evening Classes

Children in rural India are generally very weak in English. Even if they know a few words, they are too shy to use these words. Those children studying in Tamil get very little coaching at school to learn English. After the 12th class which is equivalent to leaving cert in Ireland, when some of these children join college education or poly techniques, they face a lot problem with English as the mode of lecturing is in English.

Nandri has started evening classes to enhance English speaking skills of the children with innovative and child friendly teaching and learning methods.  The intricate grammatical concepts are made easy for children with games, song and dances. Apart from spoken English, children are helped with their school assignments and also receive some food snacks.

The evening classes are named Nandri Joyful Learning Centres (NJLC) as the children should enjoy learning and feel happy to come to the centre.  The evening classes are conducted from 5.30 to 7.00 in the evenings. Some of the teachers are college students and they are benefiting from classes we have at weekends. The income which we pay them helps them with their fees.

In November 2016 we have a hundred children in NJLC and December 2016 fifty more will be added. The plan is to roll out this project next year to lots more villages. We want the villages to run these classes with teachers we will train. We want the villages to pay the cost and this will mean many more children will benefit.  

You can see from the short videos how much fun they are having while still learning 

Fund Raiser in Perth Australia

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Well done to Caoilfhionn Crowe and her friends who held a fundraiser with an Indian theme for the night. Caoilfhionn had brought back from India a dozen saris, one for each of her friends.

They raised enough money to provide a family income generation loan to 5 families. The families will be presented with a cheque by Caoilfhionn in India on Sunday, 25 January.

They will probably use the money to buy a cow which will provide the family with nutrition and milk and enough money to repay the loan over 20 months. At that point a second family will benefit from the money which was raised.

Well done to all concerned