Blog

Story of a delivery

Time: 3:45pmPlace: Periyar nagar – 150 cloth folders, freshly stitched, firmly ironed and finely trimmed, packed tightly maximizing space in the box- all set to go out for dispatch to a firm in Bangalore. The folders have a long way to go – from the poorly connected Periyar Nagar village to Kannarapettai headquarters; from where […]
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The Art of Costing

“Look at this zip – it isn’t straight”“Oh yes! okay let’s do this again”“The Buddha face is cut into two – we can’t have an incomplete design!”“AAH! Ma’am, I was focussing on a straight stitch – didn’t notice the design”“oh! this is perfect.. but wait- this is 2 inches longer than our size”“But such a […]
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Scaling Heights

“Ma’am! in the video you showed us at the training, loved how children could write on the blackboard! Can we also get low boards so our children can do that?”“yes! Let’s write that in our school improvement wishlist, let’s see if we have the funds for this” | A few days later, in the classroom, […]
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Button Up!

The usual well-oiled hair, flowers, pleated saris are all missing – messy buns, semi-done plaits, nighties and towels, tired faces at 8 AM. The women are back here after stitching until 8 PM the previous night, wrapping up dinner, managing to steal some sleep and finishing up morning chores, before coming back here. There are […]
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Shoba, the sofa.

‘What gives you comfort?’ was picked up as a prompt in our sharing circle. Ela started off sharing ‘sleep’ as the one thing in her life that provides her comfort. “It makes me overcome anything; because I HAVE to hold myself together to make things work at home,” she says. One can’t miss the grit […]
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Little Super Star

“Miss: why exactly are your pants folded up on one leg? And why does this happen everyday?Student: Miss, this is Simbu style! I like it this way!Miss: Sure! But should we do this in school? With school uniform?Student: But it’s already 4 PM – School is over right?”Interactions like these, the small ones are so […]
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Floor Space & Stars

Here’s our story of appreciation and small acts of big love #humansofkanavu‘Children learn and grow in a positive environment of love and encouragement. We have to find ways to make our positivity and encouragement visible’ was a key message of our training on building a ‘Positive Classroom Culture’. Following this, teachers broke into smaller groups and […]
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Thinking Box!

“My students are always complaining- you are talking about problem solving in the world” sighed Gowthami miss in a teacher’s circle. “Have you tried using a complaint box?” I asked and it was drowned with apprehensions about children’s ability to write, remember about it in the heat of the moment. Other ideas flowed in, discussed […]
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