Mission statement

In Tamil Nadu, free public primary education is available to all school age children. Many students from poor families in both urban and rural areas attend the public schools and excel in their pursuit of education. However, higher education is not affordable to many meritorious students. We recognize the opportunity to help such students continue their higher studies and consequently increase their likely hood of finding a job upon completion of the college years. We aim to spot needy, meritorious candidates with proven capability as expressed in their 10+2 marks, counsel them on their college options, help them with the admission into the college of their interest and offer them the necessary financial assistance to complete the course of study.

CTTS does not discriminate against students or prospective students on the grounds of age, sex, disability, religion, caste, ethnic descent, views or beliefs, or political affiliation.

Policy Statement

CTTS reserves the right to change any and all of the following policies at any time without notice.

Criteria for student selection and continuation of benefits during college education:
• 1st year college support is based on +2 and professional colleges entrance exam marks (if required) and the viability of the student to pay the fee. CTTS aims to help meritorious students with poor means or no means to provide for their higher education. The coordinators of the program will aim to thoroughly scrutinize and identify the students with genuine need to benefit from the program.
• CTTS expects all students assisted through the program to continue to work hard and earn their benefits throughout their college education. Accordingly, for a 100% free support in the subsequent years of college education, students must obtain at least 80% of the marks, on average, on all subjects for the previous year.
• The following table summarizes the eligible benefits for the students in the subsequent college years.

Average marks on all the subjects taken on the previous academic year	Free benefits expressed as a % to the yearly expenses¹	Interest free loan expressed as a % to the yearly expenses
80% and above	100%	0%
75% to 80%	75%	25%
70% to 75%	50%	50%
60% to 70%	25%	75%
Less than 60%²	0%	100%

¹ - Expenses = (Admission fee + Registration fee + Laboratory/Equipment fee + Tuition fee + Hostel fee + Mess fee + Exam fee) – (Any and all scholarships and benefits derived from government and non-governmental programs towards college education)
² - CTTS reserves the right to either discontinue or change terms on the benefits to students who score less than 60%. Each case will be handled independently as necessary.

• It is the responsibility of the student to provide the program coordinator with the copies of mark sheets and other necessary testimonials each year to receive sustained support from the program.
• The sum total of all interest free loan amount is payable by the student at the end of the college education but not later than one year from the time of graduation. A nominal interest of 5% per year would be charged on the balance for loans un-recovered beyond one year.
• All students who receive interest free loans as part of their benefit must sign a commitment letter with the program coordinator to that effect in order to receive the benefits.

2006 Funds distribution update

• S. Vignesh Babu is currently in 2nd year Engineering; II year B.Tech. (I.T) Madurai Thiagarajar College of Engineering. This year we paid Rs.38850/= towards annual fee + exam fee + book expenses.
• C. Ganesan is a new candidate we have sponsored this year. He hails from Melapatti village near Melur in Madurai Dist. He has joined M.B.B.S in Tirunelveli Medical college. We have paid Rs.16,000/= towards his annual fee. In addition we are looking forward to pay his hostel and mess fee for this year as it is incurred.
• P.K. Bhuveneswari is also a new candidate we have sponsored this year. She is admitted to B.Sc Computer Science in Fatima College Madurai. Towards her admission fee and I semester fee we have paid a total of Rs.5669/=. For the II semester, we are looking to pay an additional amount of Rs.3775/=.

Summary

For a full account summary please send an email.

How can I get involved?

Talk to us! Contact us through the email link on this page and let us know of your questions. If you are traveling to India, see if you can meet with one of the students or our organizer Shri. T.R. ChandraSekar sir in Madurai. Some of our patrons already did that and their commitment to the cause has increased many fold since then. Spread the word. Let this effort be known to your friends and colleagues. Help us raise funds to reach out to more deserving candidates. Contribute as much as you can and whenever you can. If you know of any meritorious poor candidate struggling to get through to college, let us know. We encourage each and everyone to get involved.

Air your suggestions, ideas, comments, compliments and complaints on the project in this blog. Help us continue and expand the service by all means possible.

What can I do?

Please donate whatever you can to this noble cause. 100% of what is collected reaches deserving poor students to continue higher studies.

All your donations to CT Tamil Sangam are tax deductible. A receipt will be sent out acknowledging each donation.

Please visit this site periodically to get the latest information and update on the progress of the project.


Who do I give?

Make your checks payable to CT Tamil Sangam and mark "Education Fund" in the memo.

Send it to the Treasurer of CT Tamil Sangam.

Vir Gopalan
85, Brandon Run
Bristol, CT - 06010

For our record keeping and publications, we are categorizing donors into the following groups.

Vallal - $100 Per Year

Kodai Vallal - $250 Per Year

Perunkodai Vallal - $500 Per Year

Pari Vallal - Any Amount Per Year

2006 Fundraising meeting

CT Tamil Sangam held a special meeting on June 3rd, 2006 to meet with Shri. T.R. Chandrasekar, the teacher who is coordinating and acting as our local contact in Tamil nadu to help us successfully execute this project. Shri. TRC sir is on a short visit to see his sons living in New Jersey. He is returning back to India on July 13th, 2006.

Important ideas discussed:

1. Doing this through personal contacts Vs establishing a non-profit foundation/trust to handle it.

Pros: Foundation may help visibility of the project and encourage donors to come forward in more numbers.

Cons: Operating expenses may incur. Today every one involved in this is working voluntarily without any pay. We would like to keep it that way so that 100% of the money donated reaches the target candidates and does not get distributed in expenses.

2. Instead of simply donating to the eligible candidates, can we extend it as a no interest pay-it-later loan that goes back into the project cache?

The idea is not to go after the candidates to collect the donated money, but to bind them into the project structure so that they in turn come around and help some one else in due course of time. This is an excellent idea that we are considering to implement into the project.

The strength and efficiency of the project is in having the right minded channel personnel to route the hard earned money donated to the purpose. All the members involved in this work are seriously committed to this objective.

2006 Candidates

Each of these candidates will be, if not already thoroughly verified before extending financial help.

We have requests from a bunch of hard working students this year. With all of your help, we hope to help out at least a few of them to get into college this year. Here is a sample letter. The pity is that this student could not even pay for the entrance exam and so missed out on it. She has applied to B.Sc computer science in Fatima college Madurai.

Sir,
I hail from a poor Sourashtra family. I completed my school education successfully from St.Josephs Girls Higher Secondary School, Madurai with the help of kind hearted philanthropists of this city. I got 481 marks out of 500 in the SSLC Public Examination held in April-2004. I got 1121 marks out of 1200 in the Higher Secondary Public Examinations held in March 2006. Now I wish to continue my higher studies for which I am in need of financial assistance. Therefore I kindly request you to help me in this effort. I do assure you that I' ll be grateful to you for my lifetime.

Thank you,

Yours faithfully,

==name withheld to protect student's privacy==

============================
Here is another student request through a news article lead.

2005 Fund raising letter

If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain.
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.

-Emily Dickinson

Opportunity rarely knocks. But it waits to be discovered. Well, we discovered this opportunity and we would like to share it with you. A couple of weeks back one of us spotted the above news bit in a Tamil daily newspaper.

We made an effort to trace this student and succeeded in it. A respectable high school teacher in Madurai interviewed the student and his family members on our behalf. Through him we have come to the understanding that the contents of this news article is indeed true and the boy is in dire need of financial support to pursue his higher studies. Further more, the boy has appeared sincere and shown promising traits for academic growth.

Thanks to the news article, he has already received some local support of about Rs.4000/=. He has managed to pay the fee of Rs.5300/= and attended professional colleges admission counseling on Aug. 1^st, 2005. He has secured a seat in Bachelor of Engineering (Information Technology) in Thiagarajar College of Engineering, Madurai.

His annual needs including fee, daily commute, books, exam fee and other expenses, all inclusive are estimated to be around Rs.45,000/=. The last date for paying the first year fee of Rs.38,000/= is August 17^th, 2005. We are planning on supporting this student each year for the next four years to help him successfully graduate. If at least 10 of us can come together and pool in an amount of $100 a year, we could help this student expand his opportunities many fold at the end of four years.

We seek your sustained support to help pull this one person up and out of poverty. Well, we shall try to make a difference in one life. So, here it is.

One opportunity - $100/year for 4 years – one life and one family out of slump.

Think about it; Extend a hand; contribute and show your support. Act now. Time is of essence. Thank you.

History

It started in May 2005 when Ramesh, CTTamilSangam secretary, came across a news article in Dinamalar requesting financial help for Vignesh Babu to continue his higher ed. Vignesh Babu had scored 1115/1200, but was unable to pay for the college.

We researched and located Vignesh Babu in Madurai through Shri T.R. Chandrasekar (TRC), a higher secondary school teacher and verified that the candidate is in genuine need and all the information we gathered were in fact correct. Upon interview with the candidate himself and his father, we learnt that he had already received just enough financial help from his teachers and some local philanthropists to pay for and write the professional courses entrance exam. We also learnt that without any further financial help, he was not going to continue his education. At this point, we concluded that we should help this kid go to college. But time was running out. There was only few days for professional college counseling and we had to act fast.

Ramesh organized an impromptu fund raising during CTTamilSangam annual summer picnic and collected enough money to pay for Vignesh's first year of college. Ramesh had already planned on visiting India around that time and it all fell in place, just right. Ramesh passed on the first year fee to the student through TRC sir and Vignesh paid his fee on time to get into the college.

During the subsequent India visits, Ramesh and one of our patrons Dr. Urmila Bhuvanesh and her family met with Vignesh Babu and his parents and learnt about the progress in his studies.

Vignesh is now in the 2nd year of Engineering at Thiagarajar College of Engineering, Madurai.

Synopsis

Vanakkam!

This is an effort to help poor meritorious students from Tamilnadu to get into college and continue higher education. Currently this noble task is spearheaded by the Connecticut Tamil Sangam.