"LinkedIn for Good" Foundation awards Trust Children a grant of $10,000 USD

We are very happy to announce that Trust Children was among the 25 recipients globally that were awarded a grant of $10,000 from LinkedIn for Good foundation.

We sincerely thank LinkedIn's employee champion, Ramakrishnan Mohan, who is also a sponsor for one of our children at Gurukulam School.

Click here to see the Slideshow of the 2015 grant winners from LinkedIn for Good.

Marlene's visit to Gurukulam!

Marlene, along with her parents, Karsten and Dorothee  Wiegreffe from Germany visited our school. It was wonderful having them interact with our children.

Marlene's impression of our school, in her own words:

When we arrived at the school, we received a very warm welcome from Captain Nandkumar, the principal Mr. Rajeev, Mrs. Sabita and the whole staff. Right from the beginning we could sense a very open and friendly atmosphere. 

The principal Mr. Rajeev showed us around the compound and classes of different ages. In every class we were welcomed by a loud „Welcome to Gurukulam“ which put a smile on our face. We loved the openness of the students, the concentrated and peaceful atmosphere in the classrooms and the high commitment of the teachers.

The admirable pedagogical concept was explained to us: How the education is provided completely free of charge, how students are being selected and how they function as multiplicators in their families by teaching their parents how to read and write. 

We were very impressed with the focus the school puts on prevention of violence and the overall development of the children, for example by providing karate or yoga lessons or by teaching to play musical instruments. We admired the new library which was recently started from donations. Also the school plans to start a school garden to grow its own organic vegetables.

Finally we joined the fairy tale activity in the storytelling class. My parents are both retired teachers from Bremen in Northern Germany, so they told the children the famous fairy tale of the „Bremen Town Musicians“, a retelling of the Grimm tale in which an old donkey, dog, cat, and rooster, no longer wanted by their masters, set out for the town of Bremen to become musicians. The students listened very attentive and concentrated and interpreted the animal’s voices enthusiastically. 

We were deeply impressed with our visit to Gurukulam. We would like to thank Captain Nandkumar, principal Mr. Rajeev and the whole staff for the opportunity to visit this amazing place and for letting us participate in this beautiful experience.

Warm regards,

Karsten, Dorothee and Marlene Wiegreffe

Awarded - "Golden School" by Indian Talent Group

Gurukulam was honoured as the "Golden School", for best performance in the "Indian Talent" examination for the year 2015-16!

Our school has been listed in the "TOP 100" schools in the state!

Kudos to the Principal and teachers who encouraged the students and to the children who performed exceedingly well!!! 

Ana visits Gurukulam

22nd March 2016

Ana Carrasco Dura enjoyed a morning with our children! It was wonderful to see the joy that was evident in Ana as she spent her time at school :-)

This will be the first of her many visits to come....!!

MMRT3 and Ladies Circle 4 sponsor 2 classrooms

31st March 2016

Madras Mylapore Round Table 3 along with Ladies Circle 4 sponsored 2 more class rooms for this academic year!

This brings the total class rooms built by them to 10! 

Bhoomi Pooja was conducted on the 31st March and the construction work has started in full swing.

Our loving thanks to MMRT3 and Ladies Circle 4 for their constant support over the years!! 

Michelle Jacobson volunteers 4 weeks with Gurukulam

Michelle Jacobson, a graduate Student with St. Mary's University and ESL Instructor, ELS Language Center, University of St. Thomas, 2115 Summit Ave, St. Paul, MN 55105 spent 4 weeks volunteering her time with us.

She worked extensively with our staff and students. She provided both our children and teachers plenty of learning opportunity and endeared herself with all the children!

Our loving thanks to Michelle! :-)

Here are excerpts from her impressions of the school:

First of all, THANK YOU for the wonderful opportunity to work with your school! I was very pleased for the opportunity to work with such great students and to learn and grow from this experience. 

Thanks for taking your time to fit me into the school`s schedule and for working with me. I had a warm welcome, a warm send-off and a very happy 4 weeks. 

As you know, most of my work was with the primary teacher staff. I was able to get three weeks of lesson plans with standards 1-5.First week I was here the students were doing tests. 

On standards 1-4, I focused on story telling. With standards 1-3, we made our own books, focusing on their own language, illustrations, and working on word spacing. 

Standard  3 was able to perform an American folk tale for an ISA activity. 

Standard 4 worked out of their term three English textbooks with the prose story in the book. We did drama, story boards, and reflecting on the story in their personal lives. 

With standard 5, I worked out of their English text books for the third term (the unit was cell phones)  and the last class was an ISA activity on Petals of the World. I taught about the health benefits of rose water since the rose is the national flower of the USA.

Impressions of the school:

A safe and welcoming environment where kids can run around, have fun, and connect with nature.

Impressions of the staff:

The staff has a great synergy that you can't find in most places. They welcomed me in and I was happy to work with this team!

I think the staff is pliable so to speak and there is room for growth with them. 

.......Impressions of the students:

The students stole my heart, have great energies and skills, and were a pleasure to work with. :)

MCKS hosts a special lunch!

21st March 2016

MCKS Yoga Vidya Pranic Healing Foundation Trust Tamilnadu, celebrated their Master's Mahasamadhi with a special lunch for our children. 

MCKS had been instrumental in teaching super brain yoga for our children.

Teacher's workshops March 2016

March 5th

The teacher's workshops continue ceaselessly. 

It is  our endeavour that teachers enjoy their teaching and students enjoy learning! 

Today's SDP (Staff Development Programme) was conducted by our Principal Mr Rajeev. In his own words on the activity:

Today we had a lovely SDP. Teachers learnt actively.

Schedule : How do we teach hands free ? 

Teachers were divided into groups of 4. Each group came up with a concept on how to teach hands free - that is without teaching aids. 

But they ended up using their body or things around as a teaching aid and thus realized that they can not teach with out an aid!!

After a break they played 10 games. They were then asked the concepts that they could teach using these board games?

All the 10 games are to be kept at ISA room for further use with the children. We ended the session with the idea - how to do activities and teach actively! 

We had a lovely session outdoors without using electricity. 

- Principal Mr Rajeev