www.BPODigest.com i-Vortal

http://www.indiateam.org

A person living away from his country almost always wants to contribute a part of his success in life for the development of the society where he was born and had lived till he moved to new pastures. It is this urge that motivated Karthikeyan Eswaramoorthy, native of Erode in Tamil Nadu, who works as a software engineer in California to launch TEAM.
Acronym for Team for Educational Activities in Motherland, TEAM was launched in 2000 by a group of NRIs who had assembled in California along with Karthikeyan to think of ways in which they could help India. They decided that they could help the society better by providing basic amenities to poor elementary schools, especially in rural India.

TEAM's vision is to lift society by education. Lack of basic amenities hinders education in several Government schools in India. There are no benches, desks or even blackboards in many of these schools. TEAM’s effort is to reach out to these schools to make their study environment better and thus to encourage the children.

Each TEAM member contributes $10 every month. The members then select the schools where they want to execute the project. Every quarter, a few members are selected by lots to be coordinators to execute projects of their choice. Each project receives $500 from the TEAM. The member usually chooses a school with the help of relatives and friends who live in India. The person in India interacts with the headmaster to assess the needs of the school and implements the project based on the funds allotted.

TEAM members believe that providing basic facilities to schools motivates the local people.

“It encourages more parents to send their kids to schools. This will increase the literacy percent and decrease the number of school drop-outs. TEAM has triggered a wave creating awareness about education. The ripples caused by the wave will definitely raise the educational standards of students, ” TEAM members say.

TEAM has executed projects in over 200 schools in India. Most of these schools are in rural Tamil Nadu. Efforts are on to strengthen TEAM’s activities in other parts of the country. TEAM has over 900 members with chapters in the Bay Area, Chicago, and in India. Discussions have been initiated to launch chapters in Brunei, Singapore and Australia. More members, more projects is TEAM's logic.

The India chapter of the TEAM consists mostly of members who have returned from the US. Indian members implement projects in places where there is no relatives or friends to undertake them.

TEAM extends its service to the community also in addition to helping the schools. It wants to set up community centres in hamlets where villagers can access information about agriculture, children can play and make use of the library and where periodic medical camps are conducted. For this purpose, TEAM recently launched the Friends of TEAM at Palladam and Periyapudur in Tamil Nadu.

For more details about TEAM, contact Karthikeyan E at 2000 Walnut Avenue,#T-303, Fremont, CA-94538
Phone: 408-239-3504 / 510-818-0433
Email: team-quest@yahoogroups.com
Web site: http://www.indiateam.org
Source: A team for motherland - Sify.com