Monthly Newsletter – August 2012

Namaste

The summer is almost over and students in the US are returning back to school. The theme of this month’s update is back to school, and how much those of us who have been able to attain an education should appreciate being afforded the opportunity to go back to school.

Honorary Chairwoman of Rukmini Foundation Talks About “Back to School”

Our honorary chairwoman, Laxmi Aryal was the first girl from her village to go to school during 1950s Nepal. In this blog post, she writes about how the most underprivileged of us, especially girls, can only dream of being able to go back to school, and how our foundation is making this dream come true for the first class of Rukmini Foundation scholars.

Searching for Reading Material

Simply being back in school is not enough. You need to have access to the adequate materials as well. As mentioned in an earlier post, during our first interactive mentoring session, we came up with a way to add variety and quality in our educaiton program by giving the scholars an opportunity to read material besides just their textbooks. With that in mind, we wanted the girls to select any books or articles that they find interesting and write a summary about the reading material. However, when Rukmini Foundation’s Program Manager, Nabin visited the school library recently, he found that the state of the library and availalbe materials was less than ideal. Read Nabin’s analysis of the current state of available reading materials, and how the foundation is working on improving this situation so that the girls will have access to more interesting and relevant reading materials.

Health Program Officially Kicks Off

On August 31, 2012, Rukmini Foundation held a health camp for the students of Shikharapur School with the help of Manamohan Memorial Community Hospital and Shikharapur Community School. Approximately 500 students along with Rukmini Scholars were expected to benefit from the camp. A full report about our first health program will be published in next month’s newsletter.

Over the past few months, we have begun implementing all of the programs that we promised:

Quality Education – Gyan Program: implementing a new curriculum that adds practical knowledge and experience
Mentoring – Didi Program: have begun formal mentoring sessions and the mentors are continuing their home visits with the scholars.
Wellness Program – Aayush Program: Officially kicked off this program with our first Health Camp as mentioned above.

Gyan – Sanskrit word meaning knowledge.

Didi – Nepali word for older sister.

Aayush – Sanskrit word meaning health or well-being.

As students in the US are returning back in school, the Rukmini Scholars are also busy with schoolwork. In the coming months, we will bring you updates about their academic progress as well as updates on our various programs.

Thank you for your continued support. Till next time … Namaste.

CONNECT WITH US