Visit to Sakya Hostel by Deepak Saravanan
Date of visit : 1st April 2017
It was a great pleasure visiting on my birthday to Sakya Hostel located in Manali New Town. Jayasridhar Sir, who was the caretaker and organiser of the home directed me to his hostel. It took around One and half hours to reach the Destination from my place. I reached by 3.30.p.m. in the evening. As it was my birthday I took some candies with me. I was welcome by Jayasridhar sir, we introduced ourselves to each other, then Jayasridhar Sir, told me about their hostel’s growth.I can clearly understand their service oriented mind and helping tendency toward the children.
About Sakya Hostel, it was started in the year 2005 in a rental building with the children who were in need of food and shelter. Children staying in the hostel were planted in the nearby school. It was then maintained with the help of many Donors, who supported them in running the hostel. Later the rental building was purely owned by them in the year 2011, Still girl children were placed in the rental building next to them. Now they were in progress of building another home which is right opposite to the older one. It was built for the girl children and a lecturer hall in associated with that is in progress.
The children were asked to arrange in the meeting hall. In the meantime, we took a little walk over on the new building. After which, I transferred Khan Academy Tamil Videos, that I carried with me in the External hard drive that Vetrivel Foundation provided to me. They also asked me to provide a flash drive, because they were in lack of memory on their pc’s. Then I Enquired them on the students Strength on various classes/grades. I also ran around the Television set up in the hostel, for our EDUBOX setup process.
Then, we proceeded to meet the children in the meeting hall. I prepared myself to address them, it was great experience interacting with them. I Started by introducing myself and about Vetrivel Foundation, and enquired about the videos, got good responses from them. What they said is the video should be a little bit louder and visible. I asked about Chockalingam Sir, and they responded, Yes we know Chockalingam Sir, he had visited earlier before. Then I, greeted them for their future studies.
After which I took the chocolate pack out and then conveyed that, It was my birthday Today. All the children greeted me with a birthday song, then I distributed the chocolates, every little kid greeted me with a hand shake. I was really surprised on their greeting way.
We took some photos and the young boys asked for a selfie moment, then we indulged in selfies. And with lots of happiness that breakthrough moment came they sent me off, with a great fulfillment, I left the Hostel.