December 2006

		Graduates 2006	Dipali Kar	Priyanka Das	Sujata Gayen	Ajay Dey	Sarwesh K. Jha
		Ferdous Akhtar	Samsoni Sarkar	Suchita Toppo	Biswajit Paul	Chandan Kayal	Mohammed Isa
		Bijoy Singh	Joy Singh	Arindam Dasgupta	Sanjay Das	Santosh K. Shilpakar	Sheik Akbar Ali

Highlights of 2006 Happy Holidays! Your gifts have enabled us to accomplish so much this year. Thanks to you we have graduated 17 students at UCTC and 2 from Tomorrow's Foundation (our partner organization who works with street children and youth in the Kalighat area of Kolkata). Two of our recent graduates are already working: Samsoni Sarkar for Uddami Software Services doing legal document conversion and web development and Sujata Gayen for one of our new partners, Shiksamitra, as a teacher for young women from a very poor area in Kolkata who wish to learn computer skills. Here are some more highlights from this past year that you helped us to achieve:
(please click on links to read more)
Financial aid donated for 5 students enabled them to continue their education. Classes in American Sign Language and workshop on creating Webpages held for the deaf students by intern Michelle Sherbondy. Uddami Partner Program started two new computer programs with two organizations - Sanlaap and Shiksamitra Technical training given to International Justice Mission (IJM). New curriculum developed by the Uddami team of teachers.
Student Aid Thanks to our donors these students have been able to continue their education:
Megha Mazumdar	Monika Ghosh	Reena Singh	Sabina Khatoon	Prasanta Das

Deaf Intern Mich (Michelle Sherbondy) From Gallaudet University, Washington, DC Mich interned with us for two and a half months this past summer. She taught webpage design and sign language to 20 deaf students at UCTC (Uddami Computer Training Center) and Daywalka Foundation (one of our partners). She also taught sign language to our teachers and gave a workshop on communicating with the deaf which was hosted at the Daywalka office and attended by members of six Kolkata nonprofits. Having Mich in Kolkata was an incredible experience for all of us. She surprised some of our friends by how easily she managed to get around Kolkata. Mich was a great role model for the deaf students she taught. She also took on the role of mentor and showed the deaf students everyday life skills like how to get around on the metro and how to order in a restaurant. We know some hearing visitors who have much more trouble getting around in taxis than Mich did.

Uddami Partner Program Uddami partnered with Sanlaap to start a computer program for the young women in their Narendrapur Shelter home. We provided the curriculum, technical advice and two trained teachers for this new computer program exclusively for women. Sanlaap has four shelter homes for women who are rescued from commercial sexual exploitation, daughters of sex workers and other vulnerable young girls and women. To read more about Sanlaap: http://www.sanlaapindia.org/ Shiksamitra is an alternative school working with young drop-outs from the regular school system. All of their students come from a very poor area near Kalighat. Shiksamitra is commited to an entirely different method of teaching that develops critical thinking and problem solving ability. Uddami is providing software, technical assistance and advice, and a computer teacher (one of our students, Reena Singh). We are working together to create a computer curriculum that will integrate their unique method of teaching with computer literacy.

Technical Training Bryan (our volunteer technical advisor) and Khokon (Uddami Software Services employee and graduate of UCTC) have been giving training in hardware maintenance for International Justice Mission (IJM) according to the needs of their organization. For more about IJM: http://www.ijm.org/
New Curriculum
The Uddami curriculum is regularly evaluated and edited because we feel that as technology and the job market changes, we need to revise our lessons and the skills that we teach. So our curriculum is essentially always a “work in progress”. However, during the last year we have given our curriculum a major overhaul to try to better meet the needs of our students. All of our teachers took a section of our curriculum and wrote or revised lessons. Then our Uddami Team evaluated the changes. We now feel we have the best curriculum possible – until we feel the need to revise again.

Wedding Bells Harshamanjari Nanda, Uddami teacher from 2002-3, Uddami India Foundation trustee and social worker for our partner project New Light, was married on December 5th. Traditional Bengali weddings go on for three days. Many of us from Uddami and New Light attended her wedding in Kolkata and also the party given by her new husband's family in Kaliaganj (North Bengal). We can claim some responsibility for her marriage because her husband is a cousin of Nivedita Pal who runs the Uddami Computer Training Centre.

We wish to thank all of you, without your help none of these accomplishments would be possible and with your help we can accomplish even more together. Next year we want to expand our Uddami Partner Program and help even more youth get the skills they need to break through the economic and class barriers that keep them from realizing their full potential. Happy holidays and best wishes for the new year! Alison Saracena, Director Uddami :: 200 Brannan Street #114 :: San Francisco CA 94107 http://www.uddami.org To give a donation to Uddami please click here.