Society Gaja Cyclone Relief and Renovation of Affected Schools.

The Gaja cyclone has ravaged through 4 educational districts of Tamil Nadu, namely Thanjavur, Thiruvarur, Nagapattinam and Pudhukkottai. There are a total of around10000 Government schools in these 4 districts alone. This number includes Primary, Middle, High and Higher Secondary Schools.

At midnight of 16-Nov-18, Gaja cyclone affected the Delta Belt region of Tamil Nadu namely Cuddalore, Nagapattinam, Thiruvarur, Puthukottai , Thanjavur, Dindigal and Ramanathapuram . As on 20-Nov-2018 the death toll stood at 46 and more than 251,600 people have been evacuated to over 500 relief camps.

The cyclone swept in wind and water, destroying lakhs of trees, including coconut, banana, cashew, mango, jackfruit, casuarina, betelvine, eucalyptus, teak and sugarcane on thousands of hectares. The paddy crop of the samba/ thaladi seasons was also damaged in some places. Boats and huts of fishermen were destroyed

Help is pouring from all over the world but yet there is a lot need to be done. Now ten days later, normally is returning but it would take months to fully resort the life of many and years to have agricultural benefits.

Although much concentration is needed to all areas, Chisel Group- is going to concentrate on government schools which have been hugely affected in 1.Pudukottai, 2. Thanjavur , 3. Thiruvarur and 4. Nagapattinam. We have immediately contacted the School-Education Department and discussed strategies to rehabilitate schools and help affected students, we have visited the districts personally and have met Chief Education Officers of the districts and have collected grassroot level data about the damages and needs of the affected schools.

In each district there are about 600 to 800 odd schools which need assistance at various level to be teaching-ready by end of this month and around around 60000 students who will need help in various format in the next one month.

CHISEL will facilitate to provide the students from each district

• Writing Materials
• Geometry boxes
• School bags
• School Stationary
• Umbrellas
• Uniforms
• Notebooks
• Water bottles
• Building/Re-building Toilets
• Building Infrastructure
• Clearing of Trees and Debris
• Water tanks for schools

Chisel is in the process of forming a Non-Profit Society specifically for the rehabilitation of affected students and rebuilding of damaged schools , with members from the Civil Society, Government Educational Department and Chisel which will Co-ordinate funds through CSR, Corporates , Business Houses, Individuals and utilize the funds with to provide these relief material to the schools and its students.

Chisel has also proposed a Novel idea of “Sister Schools” concept for quick and effective support to the affected Government schools, wherein Socially conscious Private Schools from the un-affected areas will adopt one or more than one government schools and provide any and all necessary support needed by the adoptee school including financial aids. The “Sister Schools” will be a relationship beyond rehabilitation and immediate support, and become a long term relationship between the schools, helping both the schools in all ways imaginable.

We are working towards bringing in as many schools from Chennai region as possible right now.

Chisel also looks to provide mental health counselling and trauma counselling to the affected students, parents and teachers, and also proposes to improve the children’s mental health by way of conducting participatory sports from children from the affected schools in due course and making them physically and mentally energised.