Friday, December 17, 2010

Keeping my pledge for the Kannamma Project

Has been possible thanks to contributions on 16th and 17th December from

Kranthi Kasibhatla 
Shivakumar Narayanan 
Kavitha C
A.S.Arul Susidhar 
Balaganeshkumar P
Subha M
  Deepak Chander
  Kamakshi
  Vinod Prabhu
  Rajan B
  Ravi K Terala
  Subash Thyagarajan
  Adhvika G 
  RK Thanjavur
  Pramod V
J
Dhanasekaran
Narayanan Ravi Chandran 
  Chinmayi Vinayakam
  Karthik Veluchamy
B S Raji 
Sivaramakrishnan Sankaran
Divya Kumar
  Kalyanasundaram
      Vamsi Krishna        
Naveen Varadarajan
Mugil Arunan
Kothai
M Ganesan
Sankaranarayanan Natarajan
Saravanakumar Gopiraj
Nadhinee
Nathan Subramani
Aarthi Subramani
Vijay Chidambaram
Senthilkumar Murugesan
Avinash
Sudarshan Prabu
Manoj MC
Narendra A
C Ganesan
Sundar Andaperumal
Sreekrishnan
Santa Claus
Yogitharani
Muthu
Ajay Vejendla
Guru Prasath
Dhanasekaran
Rajhee Muthukumar
Vijaya Kumar Babu
ITIndia.com
Raj

                            

When I actually signed up for this, I had no clue how this would work, whether I would be able to achieve this through social media and get the word out about NalandaWay and the Kannamma Project. Was a little nervous about keeping the pledge. 
Hardly thought it would be done in 5 days starting from the 13th to before the end of 17th December. I had not asked anyone for funds to support any organization before. Whenever they came to I performed free and helped raise funds and made personal donations whenever possible. There was a standing joke in the community around that C for Charity is also C for Chinmayi. After a point I was giving only charity concerts and kinda also forgot that sometimes charity needs to also begin at home. Jokes apart, the response to the Kannamma project through Twitter, Facebook and also this blog has been heartwarming. 
Once again Thank you to the contributors mentioned in this post and to those in the post below. You all have brightened the lives of so some beautiful girls out there and I wish that every time they smile, the warmth and happiness reaches your heart too. Every time they laugh may the joy find a resonance in your being. And every time their eyes light up, may you have brightness in your vision, literally or figuratively, as you may need it. May your dreams find fulfillment as the dreams of these children which are on their way to it. 
God Bless and I ll tell Santa to pay you guys a visit this Christmas :p

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

The Kannamma Project of NalandaWay

An American man was telling me a couple of days ago that India is a rich country and there is ability for Indians to pay for a service or make a donation. But the willingness is missing. 

Since the time I blogged about the Kannamma Project or rather, the time I have been tweeting about it, close to 25,000/- INR has been donated to the project in less than 2 days.

Here is my personal Thank you to 

Vijay Krishnan
Arun Vaidyanathan
K Narendra
Ganesh Prabu
Baskar
Venkatramaiah
Bhargavi
Eric Ambroise
Karthikeyan R
Barani Thilak
Veena Vijayan
Hariharan Sambath
Yegna
Yashwant Vijayakumar
Ram 
Ramanan RS
Dinesh Thiagarajan

More on 15/December

Kathiresan Uncle

Rajalakshmi Muthukumarasamy
Maha Durairaj and Family
My Anonymous friend
Shankar Ram Venkatasubramaniam
Brice Robinson
Shreyas
Vijay
Akil
Kalaivanan Kumaran

Though officially I am called the champion of the Kannamma Project to raise the funds for them in addition to the others, you, the ones who have donated are the real champions and the real heroes. 
Thank you for reading my tweet/blog, considering it and going the distance to donate the funds. 
Much much appreciated.

God Bless

Sunday, December 12, 2010

Raising funds for NalandaWay's Kannamma Project

Sriram Iyer of Nalanda Way wrote to me asking me to be one of the champions of the Kannamma Project and I was supposed to give him a video too which I could not get myself to do as schedules were tight.  I had heard about him and his work and he had touched base with me on Facebook a few times in the past. Supporting the cause of the marginalized girl child is special to me and since theirs is an art-based rehabilitation program, its special twice over.


"Marginalised girl children who are housed in residential care centres include orphans, juvenile delinquents, children rescued from bonded labour, sex work, conflict areas, refugees, children affected by HIV/ AIDS etc. These children are emotionally disturbed, have been physically abused, are prone to violent behaviour and may have been involved in crimes. They often fare poorly in school, yell or physically fight to handle social conflicts and are highly likely to engage in risky behaviours such as substance use, or unprotected sex. NalandaWay’s arts-based rehabilitation programme has helped such children overcome depression and disruptive behaviour and make successful transitions into the society.

The funds raised from this campaign will be utilized for an arts-based rehabilitation programme for marginalised girl children between the ages 12 and 20, in Government Homes in Tamil Nadu. These children would include orphans, destitute, street kids and other girl children from similar situations. This programme includes, arts training, lifeskills development, academic support, vocational training and livelihoods assistance"


This was also something Blue Elephant could be associated with as a part of our own Corporate Social Responsibility and this is a definite start for a lot more to come and to give back to the society and make it a better place than I found it. With foundations like NalandaWay it makes things a little easier.  

If you would like to donate and support their cause, kindly click here

Though my pledge is to raise at least 1,00,000/- INR, I would happier if I could raise more for them.


 

Wednesday, December 01, 2010

The new Toyota Etios AD

And I have been waiting like an excited kid just about to open a present. I sang this ad a couple of weeks ago and to finally sing the Toyota Etios tag line was quite an experience. I was kinda happy that I have also been able to sing an ad for Rahman sir. Something only the cream of singers have been able to do. The luckiest musicians IMO.  Javed Ali and Madhushree have also sung in the track of 4:41 minutes. 

This is the link to ad featuring Rahman sir 

And the link to the song. 

The new Toyota Etios AD

And I have been waiting like an excited kid just about to open a present. I sang this ad a couple of weeks ago and to finally sing the Toyota Etios tag line was quite an experience. I was kinda smiling to myself that I have also been able to sing an ad for Rahman sir. Something only the cream of singers have been able to do. The luckiest musicians IMO.  Javed Ali and Madhushree have also sung in the track of 4:41 minutes. 

This is the link to ad featuring Rahman sir 

And the link to the song.