Project Aims

INTRODUCTION
At present, the Ted Foundation is sponsoring 286 children from the economically backward families from the tsunami affected area of Alappad village and 7 children from the remote hilly rural villages of Idukki District. 21 children have completed their education with the support of Ted Foundation.

Generally the school reopens after mid-summer holidays in June every year. Due to the ongoing covid19 pandemic situation, the normal schooling has not yet started. The children are now attending online classes. As per the government guidelines, all meetings and other gathering of people are not allowed in this pandemic period. So we are adhering to the government guidelines and so there will be no meetings until the situation get better. There is uncertainty in the commencement of regular classes and when should schools reopen amid the covid19 pandemic situation and lockdown. To ensure the students education, the Government started online classes for students through TV channels and other social media. The children are attending online classes and started the academic activities in the current academic year. Due to the ban of meeting and public gathering in this pandemic, we have distributed the school items to children directly. We have packed all the school items in the eco-friendly cloth bags and distributed it based on the children’s neighbourhood groups. Each bag contains all essential school items like note books, pen, pencil, instrument boxes, scale, eraser, colour pencils, white paper, book wrapping rolls, face masks etc. All the packed school items were carried in the vehicle to each neighbourhood group. The children collected their school items by keeping social distancing and wearing face masks. The health department officials visited the school items packing centre and the distribution points and they were fully satisfied with the arrangements by keeping the covid19 protocol. It took almost 2 days to finish the packing and distribution of school items to the neighbourhood groups. The school items distribution started at 7 am and ended up at 9.00 pm. Cash gifts were given to all children for meeting their extra expenses at the beginning of the academic activities. Rs.203600 (£2395 approx.) was distributed to the children for this purpose.

IDUKKI PROJECT VISIT
There are 7 sponsored children in the Idukki Project. Mr. Sunil Varkey visited the children in Idukki project on 17th June 2020 and distributed the school items.
It is a new social initiative of TED foundation which started in the remote rural hilly villages of Idukki District. Due to covid19 protocol, we visited the children in different places. 3 children were assembled in one of the sponsored children’s house and another 3 children came down to the road side to receive the school items as they are living in the hillside. Also visited the house of one new child and distributed the school items. Cash gifts were given to all 7 children for meeting the other expenses at the beginning of the academic activities. Rs.7000 has been distributed for this purpose. Each bag contains all essential school items like note books, pen, pencil, instrument boxes, scale, eraser, colour pencils, white paper, book wrapping rolls, face masks etc.

IT TRAINING CENTRE
The IT Centre is now functioning in a rented building. The IT Centre is now equipped with 9 Desktop computers, 2 laptop computers with broadband connection. The IT Centre provides online services for the children to search for their exam results and to apply for higher education courses and imparting computer education. It is also very useful for the children to download the academic books and for attending the online classes in this pandemic situation.

REFERENCE LIBRARY
A reference library is also functioning with the IT Centre and now 186 Malayalam Books (the language of Kerala) and 279 English Books are available for reference.

Covid 19 Update
The corona disease outbreak in India is hitting very badly. The situation is deteriorating every day. Total 9.8 million people got infected and 142103 people lost their lives due to covid19. In Kerala, total 64696 people got infected and 2472 people lost their lives. There are more than 500 people infected in Alappad village where the children live. The government declared this village as containment zone and the normal life is totally interrupted. The fishing harbour in this village is closed as precautionary method. The government is supplying free food kits to the people.