Activity Report - 2008 |
10th December, 2009 |
Introduction Dear friends of SISP, Again another year has passed and SISP has successfully moved all its activities to our new premises at Kovalam Junction, Kovalam, in Kerala. The new building comprises 5 classrooms, 3 offices, a spacious room for social activities, 2 large workshops and a beautiful, large and bright multipurpose room that doubles as a cafeteria. Since July 14, 2008, we have been working in much more comfortable conditions. The expansion in space and materials has drastically improved the quality of our performance in all disciplines. Each group of children has its own class room; we bought decent furniture and educational materials, and both the teachers and the children benefit from this. We were able to start a computer lab with enough computers to arrange twice-weekly computer classes for all our children and staff. We also have a little ground around the building where the children, during free time, can practice sports and play games with the new materials we bought. All craft units have large workspace, more work tools and can now work in an agreeable atmosphere. Our social workers and accountant also have their own office where they can work and receive their clients undisturbed. We now have enough sanitary and hygienic facilities, and a spacious furnished kitchen from which we provide breakfast and lunch to our children and staff in our spacious cafeteria. This large, bright room is multi functional and, besides cafeteria, is also used for dance classes, students' meetings, staff meetings, student performances, and others. - over 40 micro credit unions for woman in the surrounding villages are running and several of them have started self-employment - an average of 90 school drop-outs between 7 and 18 are getting free daily second-chance education, transfer by our bus to and from our centre, breakfast and lunch, school allowance, medical care, and much more - more than 50 children from families below poverty line are having after class tuition in our centre, and transfer by our bus to and from their schools - tens of students have progressed from our centre to regular schools or to the public 10th grade exams, and are continuously monitored by our teaching team - 15 women and men from families below the poverty line got training in the manufacturing of handicrafts and now work in our 3 units - tens of youngsters found better paid jobs after leaving our centre, in or outside Kerala - several youngsters moved to higher education in several disciplines (computer animation, bachelor economics, aviation maintenance, nursing, …). We can indeed be proud that hundreds of families could leave the severest poverty behind them thanks to your and our continuous efforts in fighting poverty. Paul Van Gelder (President), Kumari G. Unnithan (Secretary)
1st April, 2008 to 31st March, 2009 Our different activities in the past year have been :
EDUCATION (George) Drop outs In 2008 we started with 89 children and ended with 97. Thus we had an average of 90 children and young people, who dropped out from the regular school and all of them came from very poor families. We had 6 full time teachers for the classics and 2 part time teachers for creative courses like drawing, creativity/art, dance and music. We were also helped by 10 short-term volunteers and by 1 long-term volunteer. We introduced more games and pictures in our teaching. And we worked with more worksheets. Thus we were a little more creative than the previous years. We could have a computer lab and a library this year. It has helped the teachers as well as the children to improve very much. All children could achieve a basic knowledge in computer already. And they develop a habit of reading too. We could actively participate in a rally to create awareness in the local community about AIDS on December 1st, 2008. Alternating years we celebrate an important holiday of one of the 3 main communities. In 2006 it was the end of Ramzam, in 2007, it was the Hindu festival of Onam. This year we celebrated Christmas. We had lots of fun. All children could participate in sports, arts and indoor games. It was a kind of motivation for all. All children got new dress and foot wear in this occasion. We could successfully conduct monthly tests and exams. Most of the students performed well in their exams. And the best were rewarded too. Outside school 12 more students were sent to regular schools after hard and continuous training at our centre. Even though they had some problems in the beginning they coped with the system later. It really motivates the other children to perform well in their studies. In total we have 40 students in various regular schools at the moment. Some of our children completed their lower secondary and joined for higher secondary, and some continue in degree course. After school classes We started with 60 students in the after-school classes and had 65 students at the end of the year. Thus we had an average of 60 students this year. It includes the 40 students we sent to regular schools previous years and this year, and an additional 20 students from families below the poverty line. We had seven teachers for these classes. Some volunteers also helped. Dance and sports As previous years, we had one group of children and youngsters for dance and another group for sports. The dance classes were arranged on Saturdays and Sundays from morning till evening. And sports coaching was given on Saturdays and Sundays in the evenings. It gave a good opportunity for most of them to bring out their talents and to develop them. Resignation, dismissal and new appointments 1 full time teacher resigned and 2 part time teachers were dismissed this year. 3 part time teachers and 2 full time teachers were newly appointed this year. Budget and expenses We had a budget of Rs. 150,000 for school materials and Rs. 250,000 for outside schools expenses. Fortunately we had lots of visitors this year and some of them donated most of the school materials, books, pens, pencils, music player, sports materials, library books, drawing materials and the other creatitity items we needed. If we had to buy all that was donated it would have cost us more than Rs.100,000 but still we had to spend Rs. 60,000 on school materials. The outside schools expenses were a little higher than we had budgeted. It was Rs.310,500, unexpected medical expenses of the outside school students caused the excess. SISP BUS (Santosh) Last year our bus drove 19,624 km. Daily, we conveyed a total 124 children to and from 5 different schools, and pick up and take home 90 of SISP’s children on average. We have 3 drivers, all old students from SISP, who got their licence and practice supported by SISP. All drivers work part-time as driver and part-time in one of SISP’s handicraft units. One driver took one year's leave without salary to work in one of the Gulf countries as a driver. A new old-student was appointed. Total expenses (w/o salary) for 2008-09 were Rs.141,755 for fuel, insurance, maintenance, rent etc, and total income was Rs.76,250 (rent out). Details scooters: on 24/10/08 SISP bought 2 scooters. They drove 3,137km, and the expenses were Rs.80,856 (purchase, tax, insurance, etc). The scooters are mainly used by our social workers, and for shopping for the centre (kitchen, work units, etc…
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SOCIAL WORK AND WOMEN'S EMPOWERMENT (Kumari)
We got two Belgian students social work for four months traineeship. On July 25th , 2008 one Social Worker took maternity leave for three months. She was internally replaced by Thanky (one of our teachers). Nobody resigned in this unit.
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Social work / Family welfare 93 beneficiaries on 01-04-08 : Educational care 1 Old age care 28 Life support 42 Medical care 22 Total 93 146 beneficiaries on 31-03-2009
Spend in 1 year : Educational care (5) Rs.47,775 Old age care (41) Rs.90,600 Life support (58) Rs.199,200 Medical care (42) Rs.178,800 Emergency care Rs.67,688 Total : Rs.146,584,063
New applications 2008 Total new applications 125 Rejected 54 Wait list 27 Sanctioned 34 Pending 10
New applications 2009 (31-03-2009) Total new applications 120 Wait list 8 Sanctioned 33 Pending 14 Rejected 65 |
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Literacy groups and Micro-credit unions. We had 5 literacy groups and 33 Micro-credit unions on 01-04-08. Now, at 31-03-09, we have 4 literacy groups and 36 Micro credit unions. We conducted monthly awareness classes around different subjects for all groups. We took 11 classes for the groups to inform them about different diseases. These were chicken gunia, Dengue fever, Aids, TB, Hepatitis A and B, Cholera, Elephantiasis, Measles, Mumps and Rubella. We also took classes about the importance of education and the importance of hygiene. In 2007 we gave loans without interest to several groups for starting up self-employment (retail shops, stone crushing, garment manufacturing, …). Some groups are still paying back the loan they got the previous year. These are Rahath, Ramsan, Sneha, Sreenilyam. In 2008 we did not give new loans, because they got loan from government through banks, Block (district), Panchayath (local council) and Matsyafed (fishermen federation). Most of the groups are doing self employment now. In these groups, the members are very co-operative and they are earning something. The members of these groups are developing well. |
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Scooters In previous years we did all our house and group visits by walking or with public transport. Most of the houses or groups are difficult to reach and we lost lots of time. Before we had these scooters, we could do a maximum of two house visits in half a day. But, if very remote, we could do only one house visit and a maximum of 1 or 2 groups. After we got the scooters we found we could visit 3 of 4 families in half a day and 2 in remote areas.
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WORK UNITS Unemployment in Kerala is very high and there is a high number of unskilled and unemployed youngsters and adults. Confronted with this, several years ago SISP started with creating employment and job training opportunities for our 16+ youngsters and for beneficiaries. Over the years 3 work units were started, most of them focus on eco friendliness (recycling). The 3 units got registration from the government's Small Scale Industry sheme as 'Sebastian Employment Projects' (SEP) under SISP. For the first time, SISP gave opportunities to the children of our staff who are older than 18 and who are still studying, to do vacation work for a maximum of 2 months in one of our handicraft units. The salary they earned is intended to be used for educational expenses. 4 Students took this offer and worked for 2 months in our units. |
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Cocunut Handicraft Unit (Mereena) Stock at 01-04-2008 : 1,519 pieces of handicrafts Stock at 31-03-2009 : 1,736 pieces of handicrafts Production 01-04-2008 to 31-03-2009 : 926 pieces of handicrafts Sales 01-04-2008 to 31-03-2009 : 709 pieces of handicrafts Budget (w/o salaries) from 01-4-2008 to 31-03-2009 : Rs.17,445. We got more orders and we had to buy for Rs.49,444 extra materials and tools. Expenses from 01-04-2008 to 31-03-2009 : Rs.66,899. Staff at 01-04-2008 : 8 staff (2 part-time, 6 full-time ) Students at 01-04-2008 : 5 Staff at 31-03-2009 : 6 staff (2 part-time, 4 full-time) Students at 31-03-2009 : 5 New products designed and developed between 01-04-2008 - 31-03-2009 : Ear rings, Rings, Hairpins, Hip chain and Candle stand New tools between 01-04-2008 - 31-03-2009 : Three electric grinding machines, three sets of files and one big file set. |
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Paper Bag Unit (Siva) Stock at 01-04-2008 : not known Stock at 31-03-2009 : 12,332 bags Production from 01-04-2008 to 31-03-2009 : 52,087 bags Sales from 01-04-08 to 31-03-2009 : 39,295 bags Budget from 01-04-2008 to 31-3-2009 : Rs.28,733 Expenses from 01-04-2008 to 31-3-2009 : Rs.124,334 (w/o salaries, over budget because of : export fee, purchase digital weighing machine and screen printing machine) Staff at 01-04-2008 : 6 full-time Students at 01-04-2008 : 7 Staff at 31-03-2009 : 6 full-time Students at 31-03-2009 : 7 New products between 01-04-2008 to 31-03-2009 : None New tools between 01-04-2008 to 31-03-2009 : Digital Weighing Machine, Screen Printing Machine |
Stitching Unit (Esther) Production from 01-04-2008 to 31-03-2009 : 9,504 separate items (covers, files, diary covers, jewels, shirts, pants, churidar, blouse, window curtain, etc.) Sales from 01-04-2008 to 31-03-2009 : 9,372 items Stock at 31-03-2009 : 132 items Our budget for 2008-2009 was Rs.31,054 (budget, extra budget, machine). Our expenses were Rs.34,754. Our income was Rs.41,277. We started 01-04-2008 with two full time & one part time staff. On 31-03-2009 we had two full time and one part time staff. One new full time staff joined at August 2008. Four students came for training in our unit in 2008-2009. For the moment four students are in training. July 2008 one full time staff resigned. One beneficiary was selected for training in our unit, but she left. During 2008-2009 we started production of several new items (jewels, mats, hangers, files, sheets, shoulder bags etc.) and we bought one more stitching machine. Total number of machines for the moment is five (one electric machine, one lock machine & three ordinary manual machines). |
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