Friday, February 7, 2014

Pavankumar S.C.! Boy wonder!

Pavan came to Karunya Mane in June 2010. He lived with his mom in a poor village near Mandya. As a single parent with significant health issues, mom had difficulty raising her only child. Dad abandoned the family a long time ago.

Pavan in 2010
When Pavan came to KM, he had been attending 6th grade in a government school in his village. However, when we tested his reading and writing abilities, we found that he could not even write the Kannada alphabet. 

Pavan and mom in 2012
We enrolled Pavan in the nearby private school that our other kids attended and put him in 4th grade even though he should have been in 1st. Like all our other kids, Pavan got tutoring everyday after school for two hours.

Pavan was also malnourished and very skinny when he came to Karunya Mane, so we gave him extra nutrition, including milk, eggs, and multivitamins.

Over the past three and a half years, Pavan has demonstrated that he's quite a smart boy and just a really good kid. He is well-mannered, listens to his elders, contributes to a positive environment at Karunya Mane, and participates actively in all of his extracurricular activities. He's often selected for school performances, like the one below (that's him at the top of the pyramid).

Pavan in a school performance
And, now, after three years, Pavan is ranked in the top 5 in his 7th grade class! We are very lucky to be able to care for a great kid like Pavan, who came from such abject poverty and is proving himself to be quite an accomplished boy.

Pavan in December 2013
Our house mothers provide written evaluations of each child every year. On Pavan's recent report, the house mother noted that Pavan is very special and, with good guidance and support, will grow up to be an upstanding young man in society.

Give a kid the opportunity to achieve his or her full potential -- it's the most wonderful thing you can do!

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