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.