Deepam is an NGO working to empower lesser-privileged children with access to information and opportunity. We take laptops into slums in Chennai once a week and teach children Computers and English. We hope to light the spark in the child’s mind and make them curious for life.
Deepam as an idea was initiated in January 2008 when Ram Viswanathan discussed ‘giving-back’ to the society, over an early morning run with Karthikeyan. Since then, a bunch of enthusiastic volunteers have made the idea, a reality. As we realised since the start, it has been us, volunteers, who have benefitted the most out of the interaction with the children.
Deepam ran a pilot program in April 2008 at Perungudi in Chennai, with the help of Nalamdana – a SHG. Every weekend during this period, the children who gathered at Nalamdana’s centre in Perungudi played with the laptops, with guidance from Deepam volunteers. The children were hooked to the idea of ‘playing’ with the computers – they were taught to browse the internet, send e-mails and work with the Office tools. The enthusiasm shown by the children inspired the Deepam team to take this idea to other parts of Chennai.
Deepam celebrated its first anniversary in April, 2009 when we issued certificates to children who completed our course. We were officially registered as an NGO in the same year.