(a) Women's health camp ( gynae, paediatric and diabetic) in Madurai district attended by 8 volunteer doctors and benefiting 415 women and girls.
During the year a total of 1635 children benefited by our Vidya Vikasini evening classes project out of which 805 children came to the 10 new centers each in Tirunelveli and Tuticorin districts. In these new centers boys numbered 325 and the rest were girls. SC/ST accounted for 330 children, most backward class category accounted for 180 children and the rest belonged to backward and other categories.Six centers of evening classes continued in the districts of Nagapattinam and Tiruvarur districts in this second year of withdrawal of BHF assistance.
Our tutorial classes for the 10th and the 12th grade Board examinations continued to be popular during the year. Particular mention must be made of our tutorial classes run in Edayur government high school in Tiruturaipundi taluk of Tiruvarur district, which was running with 16 teacher vacancies. 107 boys and girls out of 123 passed the 12th grade and 113 boys and girls out of 157 passed the 10th grade. It must be noted that the vast majority of these children belong to very poor SC/ST and most backward category families. Overall in our tutorial project this year the success rate in the 12th grade rose to 87% from 76% and to 85% from 80% in the 10th grade. In the new tutorial center in Tirunelveli district, 29 out of 30 children passed the 10th grade Board examination.
In our computer literacy project, a total of 1220 children benfited during the year. Out of these, 100 were in Nagapattinam district, 240 in Madurai district, 280 in Coimbatore district and as many as 600 children were from Tirunelveli and Tuticorin districts. 300 belonged to SC/ST category, 350 to the most backward category, 400 to the OBC category and the balance to BC and other categories. As a direct benefit from our computer literacy classes nine students secured jobs during the year as computer operators bringing great satisfaction and self esteem to the families besides significant additional income.
A special feature of this year's women's health camp was screening of 105 patients suspected of diabetics. We had the benefit of voluntary expert services of as many as eight doctors.
A new project started this year relates to palliative care and comfort visits to indigent patients admitted in a major government hospital at Palayamkotai of Tirunelveli district. Many of these patients require special services including organization of blood donation. Six BHF volunteers visited 200 patients every week. As per patient request special puja prasadam for recovery was brought to the patients and with the permission of the doctors chronic and indigent patients wee given food, fruits and tonic medicines. In special cases home visits were also made after discharge to ascertain felt needs.
Another new project during the year was mobilization of volunteer services to clean and improve the environmental cleanliness of ancient rural places of worship. We undertook this project in four temples after survey of felt needs and pressed in to service forty Foundation volunteers with an equal number of local community members.
On our cultural activity platform we organized a structured competition among 1000 children from 20 villages, in patriotic songs, recitation of shlokas from Bhagavad Gita, cherished by rural families. About 1000 saplings were distributed among the children for plantation in selected and cleaned-up areas.
Under another new project in the year aimed at creating the reading habit among children our Foundation set up a library for children in each of the districts of Coimbatore, Madurai and Tirunelveli. These were located in the computer literacy centers to enable children to read during the recess time. A small stock of story books an periodicals are in the library. Some of these are also taken by our volunteer supervisors to the Vidya Vikasini eveninc class centers for the use of children who do not attend the computer literacy classes.
