The Kolachalam Family

For a long time, the need was felt to energize and recoup the elementary education system at DPS (Detroit Public Schools). Lack of education reflects poorly on all walks of life. Good Education has played a huge role in lives of the Asian Indian community in MI and people who have migrated to USA. Realizing this potential for development in the youth through education, a group was formed in 2013 called Detroit Indians (Asian Indian). Their mission statement: Every child in Detroit has a right to better life through education.

The DPS school children have fared poorly on various quantitative and qualitative tests. (in fact Detroit stands almost last for the quality of elementary education nationwide)To bring the kids of DPS up to par with other schools the group decided to raise funds and hire tutors to give them additional help with basic education. The funds are raised by a fundraiser and sponsors. The funds are then devoted to hiring tutors to help children achieve their educational goals. We are very proud to say that Dr. Kolachalam and family (Ram,Sue, Namrata and Anjali) are among the founding members of this esteemed organization. The results of this effort are already visible, the Wayne elementary school, which DI is affiliated with, the children are scoring higher in all tests and competitions. The average has gone up from D and F, to B/B+. That is a proud achievement if you consider the familial conditions some of the children come from. Adult supervision is lacking as some parents are in drug rehab or incarcerated. There are kids whose parents don't know where the kids go after school. Some of the kids are extremely hungry as there is no one to give them a meal when they return from school. The funds raised from the charity are devoted exclusively for the benefit of these school children. In the founding year the group DI (Detroit Indians) raised $20,000 toward this charity. The funds were donated to a very worthy cause called the Front Porch. The next year $33,000 were raised and DI purchased laptops and tablets for these kids to use at school and to Skype to their tutors. Now we have a full-time tutor coordinator, who teaches kids one on one and is appointing other tutors on Skype to help the children with math and sciences. This is where high school children from the same community have helped (volunteers)by providing tutoring through Skype. Judging by the enthusiasm and energy, the children of Detroit will be at par with rest of MI at soon. Anjali Kolachalam has been a tutor during her summer last year, this year also she is planning on being the tutor. The basic idea to start this charity was formulated on the thought that it's time to bring education to Detroit, a town which has always been counted as being one of the poorest and uneducated communities in USA. Education has helped numerous communities and individuals improve their lives be it in Medicine/Engineering/IT or other fields. So the hope is that Detroit will also benefit from the education as rest of the communities, one child at a time. The yearly fundraising event name is "Utsaah" literally meaning "enthusiasm"(Sanskrit) reflecting the energy and enthusiasm of the group and the children who inspired this cause.

Total hours of service
500