Happy Belated Krishna Janmashtami !

Krishna Janmashtami is the annual commemoration of of the birth of the Hindu deity Krishna, which fell on August 28 this year.

Darsha, Yashavanth, Manu, Mohan, Darshan, Jeevan, Umesh, Venky, Adarsh, Vishnu, Vishnu, Raju!

There were celebrations throughout the country, including at Karunya Mane! On Wednesday morning before school, our little boys got dressed up as Krishna and had a good time playing their "flutes"!

Umesh! 

Little Venkatesh!

School grades!

The kids at Karunya Mane just got their final grades for the school year (2012-2013, which ended in March). Here are a few highlights.

Adarsh, who had to repeat lower kindergarten, received all As and A+s this year and he'll be going to upper kindergarten this coming year (June 2013 to March 2014). Yay!

Surya did very well again in his elite English-based school, St. Francis. He ended up in 4th place in his 3rd grade class!

Surya (left) with his little brother Darshan

Shilpa, our girl who came to Karunya Mane at age six with no schooling, got an A+ average for the second year in a row!

Shilpa

Latha continues to struggle in school. She was allowed to pass 4th grade even though her scores did not merit the promotion because Indian law forbids schools from failing children, regardless of how badly they perform in school. We are currently searching for a teacher who can homeschool Latha for this coming school year. If you know an interested teacher candidate, please let us know.

Latha and her little sister Jyothi

Divya and Vijayalakshmi did very well this year, their first year in English medium (5th grade), with overall average grades of A. We thought they did well considering going from a Kannada-based curriculum to an English-based curriculum is like going from a French- to an English-based curriculum.

 

Divya and Vijayalakshmi

Next year, Pooja and Prema will skip a grade and go from 5th to 7th grade because they are older than their peers in class (they missed several years of school when they lived on the street and in the slum). They both did well in 5th grade, averaging A grades, and understand they have to work extra hard next year.

Arabia did very well in 4th grade, scoring A+s and As throughout the year, and will be going to 6th grade this coming year. Go Arabia!

Our oldest girl, Asha, passed 12th grade and will be starting her bachelor's degree this June. She's in the process of applying to colleges in Mysore -- stay tuned for more!

Asha

Harish, our 10th grader, also passed the nationwide 10th grade exam, and will start PUC 1 (11th grade) in late May. Harish, who lived on the streets before coming to Karunya Mane, went from 1st grade to 10th grade in five years. He started his education far behind his age and has worked hard during the past six years to graduate 10th grade this year.

Harish (left) with Manikanta, who passed 9th grade, and Sreenivasa, who passed 11th grade.

Our kids averaged an A grade, and they are all continuing their studies over the summer vacation with daily two-hour tutoring at Karunya Mane. The kids work hard at their schoolwork and really want an education. Let's wish all of our kids another excellent school year!

If you'd like to make a donation to help us cover our kids' school expenses, please do so at Donate Now! Expenses for one year of schooling are approximately US$92. Thanks for your continued support!

Umesh!

Little Umesh has been with Operation Shanti since his birth on June 6, 2007. He was always a chubby baby and looks a lot like his father, who is a day laborer at the big vegetable market in the city.

Umesh in June 2008

Dad wasn't very good to his two boys, Darshan and Umesh, and rarely bothered to care for them. He also frequently beat up his wife, Kavita, and she hated that her boys saw this happening to her. Mom took as good care of her boys as she could, and when we opened Karunya Mane, she asked us to take in her boys.

Umesh just finished kindergarten at Deepa School, a nice private school in the area. During his years at Karunya Mane, he has really improved in both behavior and demeanor. He used to be a grumpy little boy and frowned often, and he used to like to hit his friends!

Now, in 2013, Umesh is a very happy little boy who smiles a lot, listens obediently to his house mother, and plays nicely with his friends. He also listens to his teachers in school -- we never get complaints about Umesh -- and shows great interest in schoolwork and writing the ABCs.

Umesh (left) with friends Jeevan (center) and Adarsh (right) in late 2012

Umesh, almost six years old, is growing up really nicely, has so far maintained his baby fat (!), and likes to live at Karunya Mane with his brother Darshan. Mom visits them once a month and she always brings them a nice lunch and snacks.

We'd love to get Umesh a sponsor! If you are interested in sponsoring Umesh for a year, please see our website at Sponsor an Operation Shanti Kid! on how to go about doing this. Sponsorship is $400 a year, or $33 per month for 12 months.

Thanks so much!

(cute) Brats? Meditating?

Nine boys at KM are from ages 4 to 7 and, yes, they are sometimes more than a handful.

Other times, they are calm and serene, and enjoy a moment of quiet meditation ... and yawning.

Hanging out with growing kids

As all kids do, ours are growing up quite nicely. Here are pictures of a few of them taken recently, while we were all hanging out one afternoon at Karunya Mane.

Harish

Mohan, Prema, and Darshan

Shanti, Prema, Asha, Shwetha, and Sumitra

Venkatesh and Mohan (Darshan and Adarsh in the background)

What do the little ones do all day?

Wonder what the little ones do all day?

To start with, four of our tiny tots, Mohan, Lalitah, Gowtham, and Darshan, attend pre-nursery school from 10:00 am to 12:30 pm each day. Adarsh, the fifth little one, is two years old and starts school next year.

Lalitha, Gowtham, and Darshan

First they take a bath and eat their breakfast. Then they get ready for school, by brushing their teeth, getting dressed, and combing their hair. Next, they get a ride to nursery school since they are small and it's a little far for them to walk.

At 12:30pm, they return for lunch, a little nap and playtime, and then tutoring with Vaibao! Vaibao spends 15 minutes with each teaching them to write the letters of the alphabet. He also sings songs with them and tries his best to get them to sit still for a few minutes.

Darshan seems to be listening intently to Vaibao.

Then decides that showing teacher his toy cell phone is more interesting!

Online in Finland

Thanks to our friend Satu for writing about us on a travel blog in Finland:

http://blog.travelstart.fi/2009/05/apua-intian-katulapsille.html

(Google translate does a decent job translating from Finnish to English...)

Vishnu, Vinuta, Imran, Darshan, Jyothi

Kaleem's birthday (and cute kids)

Kaleem celebrated his eleventh birthday on May 6 this year.

Darshan and Devaraj giggling. Little Pooja eagerly waiting for her slice of birthday cake.

Amita trying to feed little Umesh a piece of cake. Suma also waiting for cake.

Kaleem

Anusha comes to Karunya Mane

Anusha, a cute little four-year-old, arrived at Karunya Mane this past week. Her grannie brought her to us and asked us to take her in.

Anusha's mom died soon after Anusha was born, in early 2004, and her dad ran off and married another woman. Nobody has seen him since. Grannie Geeta has been taking care of Anusha since then, but it's difficult for her because she's alone. While she works during the day, she has to leave Anusha with neighbors or friends, which means that Anusha is often alone.

Anusha with her new friends, Umesh and Darshan

We visited Anusha's grannie's house, a rented room attached to a house in a slum area of Mysore. A good chunk of her income from cleaning two house helps pay her rent. Anusha will start school this coming June, along with our other kids.

the KM little ones: Jyothi, Siri, Darshan, Umesh, Anusha