Mission
Kalai (arts) aksharam (education) ashram (shelter) = Kalaaksharam. To foster Indian arts in USA and India and involving cultural arts in social work; To educate and train destitute, disabled, unaffordable in fine arts and skills; To primarily focus on women’s education; To expand STHRI (meaning women) where the acronym means Support Teach Heal Reform India; To adapt a village and cater for its betterment and growth; To establish a global platform for arts, music, language as University Curriculum.
Projects – Destitute, Unaffordable, Disabled
- Albana Small Industry: Tailoring, embroidering for destitute
- Bharatanatyam for the unaffordable
- Christian Carnatic (for totally-visually impaired)
- Gurukulam
- Martial Arts (Karate/Kungfu)
- Medical Camps
- Mentor Images: Oviya (drawing) classes for unaffordable
- Special Arts for Autistic
- Special Care for Elderly
- Special Ed (Computer and English)
- Specialized dance for Hearing Impaired
- The Art of Sculputoring
- Charity – clothes distribution, improving the quality of life in the villages.
ALL CLASSES ARE FREE. NO FEE IS CHARGED. AT PRESENT, FULLY FUNDED BY KNS/RANI.
ALBANA SMALL INDUSTRY. The Tailoring aspect of Kalaaksharam is named after Rani’s mother ALBANA – Albana not only supported her Evangelist husband, Pastor S. Thomas, she was a very resourceful and generous woman. Read about her in the Post on Tailoring.
As the very first project in Kalaaksharam, 40+ destitute women (widows and divorced) were recruited. Mrs Soucila Latour inaugurated the first session March 2011. Women who did not know how to hold a needle and do a simple running stitch were exposed to using sewing machines. Present teacher is Janaki.
CARNATIC MUSIC FOR THE BLIND. Kalaaksharam is an arts ashram, purely for unaffordable, destitute, and disabled. A recording studio was planned in 2009 with the seed money of $1000 donated by Shirley Abraham. The studio was named after Sumithrin, who was named after Mrs. Priya Sumithra Morlock, both of them were present at the inauguration in September 2009. Due to distance the facility did not transpire to a studio, hence visually-impaired (totally blind) artists were recruited and Carnatic Christian songs were recorded at Ruben Recording Studio in Chennai. The album is yet to be released. Mrs. Pauline David plans to sponsor the project.
Future plans include recruitment of blind people to learn Carnatic music. For transportation purpose, a new Innova has been purchased.
MENTOR IMAGES. Arts and drawing classes are offered to the locals. A selection process was done by Mr. Manoharan, and later continued by Mr. Rajasekhar. This project is funded by the contributions of Dr. Thambi Thomas, a retired educationalist who is also a great artist. He and his wife Patricia (Wallang) recently visited the site and conducted a competition for the students.
BHARATANATYAM was initiated in March 2013 with a ribbon cutting by KNS Sishya, Anitha James. Teacher is R. Pavithra, disciple of Tmt. Malarkod Vijayaraghavan, trained in the Thanjavur style. Plans are being made for Rani to teach Bharatanatyam to the hearing impaired.
CARING FOR THE LOCALS. Karate, Kungfu are taught for a fee to generate responsibility among the young boys. First teacher was Mr. Samuel. Present teacher is Rajasekhar.
CARING FOR THE LOCALS. Rani had donated land for the ration shop for the village. Clothes, household items are periodically distributed to the 800 families in that village. A medical camp was conducted in April of 2012 in the presence of Rev. Franklin David. Vocational sessions were conducted teaching the ladies to make detergent, candles etc.
Goal: If only each and every NRI can adopt a village in India!