Our Year-end Assessments were held in all our 48 schools for over 2800 children in the 2nd week of February and about 30 of our Coordinators took a lot of effort to conduct these within 4 days. The analysis of the Assessment shows that 98% of the kids improved their English language skills. 1077 kids at the year-end scored > 60%, as against just 95 kids before OBLF intervention. Over 50% of the OBLF children (as against 28% of Non-OBLF children) scored > 60%

Once again the staff of NIIT made time from their busy schedule to interact with our kids at the Gudahatti school. We are truly grateful to them

https://www.scribd.com/document/367905233/The-Joy-of-Giving

OBLF has taken another small step by renting out a small new work place at Nerlur where a puja was done by our Coordinators on 20th October, 2017

OBLF had its Annual Prize giving Day on 5th August, where all the merit children were given prizes, and the children and the Coordinators put up a great show of songs and skits for the well attended function.

Our Annual 5 week Summer Program started on 17th April, which is attended by 150 - 200 of our rural children. The program is full of learning games, fun-filled activities, story telling, computer sessions etc. A team of NIIT employees visited our program and interacted with the kids, by showing movies teaching craft and some interesting story-telling and games. We are truly grateful to the management and employees of NIIT.

This year the BEO has very kindly arranged for mid-day meals for the children, even during the Summer holidays. We really appreciate his considerate gesture.

We successfully completed our Year-end Assessments - spoken and written - for all our 1000+ children. Our Senior Coordinators did a wonderful job of it.

As per our annual tradition, this year too we distributed toys of their choice to all the over 1000 children of our 25 adopted rural schools. Our sincere thanks to the employees of Red Busline and Intuit for bringing so much joy to these under-served kids.

One of our senior Coordinators, Ashwini, is getting married on 12th November, and leaving OBLF. We gave her a fond farewell at this week's Coordinators' training. Our best wishes are with her.

As in the past, during the Daan Utsav week from 2nd to 8th October, OBLF enthusiastically takes part in many events and a number of Corporates put up Wish Trees for us, to fulfill many of our children's and OBLF's wishes. We are grateful to them all.

One of our first students, Priyanka, who passed her SSLC with 81% overall and 85% in English, received a scholarship cheque from Suprajit Foundation. We are truly grateful for this encouragement.

In the last week of our 5-week Summer Program, we had the ever popular "Bazaar day", where children bought and sold varied items of their interest.

Half way through our 5 week Summer Program, today our children enjoyed team competition with many enjoyable games

Our 5 week Summer Program saw a great response from almost 200 of our kids. They enjoyed the freshly made buttermilk too!

OBLF featured in Deccan Chronicle Bangalore 20 April 2016.
http://epaper.deccanchronicle.com/articledetailpage.aspx?id=5239719
http://epaper.deccanchronicle.com/articledetailpage.aspx?id=5239744

Many thanks to our volunteer Kavitha Prasad for her painstaking effort in making beautiful puppets for our story-telling videos.

We have completed our Written as well as oral year-end Assessments for all our over 500 kids in our 15 schools.

On 4th February, Trustees of the NGO Colours of Life visited 5 of our rural schools and were very impressed by the work done by us.

Today, a team from Intuit visited 3 of our schools and gave dazzling gifts to all the children, along with dry fruit boxes. We thank the generosity of all the staff of Intuit who opened their hearts for these children.

We had a successful Christmas collection drive at Shishya Nursery. We thank the principal, Lakshmi Vijeyndra, and all the parents, for their support year after year.

All the over 500 kids of our 15 adopted govt. primary schools got Diwali toys, thanks to the continued generosity of the employees of Red Busline.

On 8th October, OBLF took part in an NGO Mela organised
by Yodlee Infotech at the Prestige TechPark at Marthahalli.
We thank Yodlee Infotech for giving us this opportunity.

OBLF completed 5 years this July, and we celebrated that at our Annual Prize Distribution Function held on 8th August at the Government primary school at Lakshmisagara village. The children and the Coordinators put up a wonderful show of songs and skits. Merit children got prizes of Fixed Deposits, Cash, Books, ranging from Rs.2,500/- to 500/-

Today 13 Japanese ladies from Muse Creations visited our Chandapura school and had lots of activities with the children. They also gave gifts and books and a donation to OBLF. We are truly grateful to Miho Malhan for arranging this visit.

Our 5 week Summer Tutorials ended today with a lunch of Lemon Rice - lovingly prepared by one of our own Coordinators - and chocolates, for all the over 100 children. Some of them even shed tears because they did not want this enjoyable experience to end

Tutored and enthused by our weekly in-house training, our Rural Coordinator Padma, a mother of 18 and 16 year old boys, gained enough self-confidence to decide to continue her studies which were cut short by her marriage 20 years back. Today she proudly declared that she has passed her SSLC. Padma has decided to go further and start her PUC I too, while continuing her work as a Coordinator for OBLF. We are really proud of her and wish her well

Summer Tutorials 2015 started well today with over 100 children from 9 schools attending our program - they loved the "school bus" experience

Having finished the Oral Assessments, we have now started our year-end written Assessments for all our 10 Rural schools

On National Voter's day, one of our Coordinators, Veena, got an award for best Poll Both officer and great work in voter registration in Anekal taluk from the Governor of Karnataka.

We have started our year end Assessments to ascertain the impact of our intervention on each child.

A Team from a Middle Eastern NGO - Alfanar Lebanon - visited some of our schools on 2nd December, 2014, to gain first hand knowledge of how we serve the under-privileged children.They interacted with the kids and the Coordinators.

On 9th October, OBLF took part in an NGO Mela organised
by Yodlee Infotech at the Prestige TechPark at Marthahalli.

This year again OBLF participated in a day long Charity bazaar organized by Muse creations.
OBLF thanks Muse Creations for providing this opportunity.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/238915038/An-article-in-Deccan-Herald

On 2nd August we distributed Prizes to the Merit students of all our schools at a well-attended function.
Thanks to the sponsorship of a Mumbai based Foundation we were able to give FDs and cash, plus books
worth Rs.2,500/-, Rs.1,500/-, Rs.1,000/- and Rs.500/- to each student.On the occasion, our Coordinators
sang an ABBA song, while the kids sang many songs, told a story and in fact put up a wonderful skit.

To keep the children engaged even during the holidays,
we had Summer Tutorials at 3 centres, where kids from
all our rural schools gather daily for 3 hours.
The program focused on fun-filled learning
– through games, songs, activities, story-telling etc.

Our Director, Ruby Kamdin, along with 2 of our Rural Coordinators Veena and Munirathna participated in the
CII CSR Summit and NGO Mela organised by CII at Hotel Lalith Ashoka on 25th February.

Ruby and I attended a whole day event.
Theme: Collaboration between NGO/NPO , Corporates and Government
The theme resonated in all the panel discussions and presentations.
Events:
1.Presentations by some NPO/NGO/Corporates: what is working model.
2.Panel discussion : Between NGO/NPO - How/Why/Can they Collaborate.
Everyone feels they have to Collaborate
3.Panel discussion : Between Corporates - How/Why/Can they Collaborate.
Not necessarily corporates can or will collaborate, unless there is some shared and common values.

Generocity - October 5th
OBLF participated in a day long NGO Charity event organized by United Way as part og the Joy of Giving Week.
OBLF thanks United Way for providing this opportunity.

OBLF participated in a day long Charity bazaar organized by Muse creations.
We were able to interact with many people and raise funds.
OBLF thanks Muse Creations for providing this opportunity.

The Zynga team organised a 3-day training on computers for our coordinators.
They also arranged the pick up/drop off that was very convenient for the ladies.
The Coordinators enjoyed the training.
OBLF thanks the Zynga Team.

Our Coordinators underwent a one week training on teaching techniques at Mount Carmel College, Bangalore.
Mrs. Usha Kumar, the HoD of Human Development Department at Mt. Carmel, who conducted the training,
gave the Certificates to our Coordinators.
The Coordinators enjoyed the training.
OBLF thanks the Mount Carmel College.

Three of our Coordinators and one of our Volunteer underwent a one day training on
"Teaching Reading and Vocabulary Grammar" conducted by Trainer Huma Riaz at British Council,Bangalore.
The Coordinators enjoyed the training.

I spent the first few weeks after moving back going to several villages and looking for a primary school where I could start work. Sometime in June, I had gone to the Village Panchayat office in Chandapura a few kilometers south of Electronic City on Hosur Road where the Panchayat development officer Joseph introduced me to Srinivas a resident of village Lakhsmisagar in Anekal Taluk. Srinivas took me to his village primary (elementary) school. As soon as we arrived in the village, all the children who have to sit on the floor stood up and said ‘Good Morning Miss’.