AID-BayArea Newsletter July '02 - Sept '02 PROJECTS 1) SAADOW Visit Report 2) HBP Update EVENT REPORTS 1) Sangam 2002 2) Talk by Shri Rangasamy Ilango 3) Ekta fund-raiser OTHERS 1) New AID Calendar (2003 is almost here!) OTHER SOURCES OF AID NEWS THANK YOU 1) SAADOW Visit Report An AID volunteer Babu Sankar visits SAADOW, a non-profit group in Natham, Tamil Nadu. Our chapter supported this group to start tailoring classes for rural underprivileged women in April 2001. Here is his report: "Natham, where SAADOW is located is a 3 hour journey from my hometown. They work from a small office with two little rooms. Sonaimuthu, the coordinator of SAADOW received me. After chatting for a little while we went to the village where the tailoring course is conducted. The tailoring classroom is inside the SAADOW's medicinal plant farm. It is a very beautiful place in middle of village fields. The trainees had completed their class for that day. But they were asked to stay since I was visiting them. They had 2 hours of theory and 3 hours of practical. There were around 8 sewing machines out of which two were for embroidery. The students feel that tailoring skill is very useful as they can stitch clothes at home for their family members as well as for people in the neighbourhood supplementing their income in the process. I could feel their confidence grow as they learnt this skill. The students also get to interact by coming to the course. The teacher Annapurani is a very creative and skilled person. She teaches them lots of designs and embroidery skills. She also makes every student to prepare a report book. They make a miniature version of all the designs they learnt and paste in the book. I was very eager to see how our little efforts make a difference in few people's lives. In all our efforts, there is a wish that we will make someone's life better. By visiting SAADOW, i got a chance to see that. Though our contributions are small, the changes are small, there is ample hope that these efforts will scale up in magnitude." 2) HBP Update Kala jatha (street plays and songs to inform and educate people about HBP and other issues of social importance, used primarily as a motivational tool) tours of Tamilnadu commenced on July 7th with an inaugural function at Taramani, Chennai, attended by over 600 people. Three different teams trained by state resource personnel went on a month long tour throughout the 300 villages in Tamilnadu where HBP is going on. The team named as "Thiruvalluvar kalai kuzhu" (named after the renowned tamil poet Thiruvalluvar) performed in the Kanyakumari blocks supported by the Bay Area chapter. Health related work is going on in full swing in all the blocks in Bihar and Tamilnadu. In some blocks in Tamilnadu, educational programs have been started - these are conducted in local schools during after-school hours. The recent set of photos from both Bihar and Tamilnadu are available at http://www.aidindia.org/images/bihar/ Vishal Gupta from AID-State College visited Chand, Gaya, Rohtash and Jehanabad (Jehanabad is supported by our chapter). His report and pictures from those blocks are available at http://photos.yahoo.com/vishalk_gupta. We welcome you to join us and find out more about how you can help. EVENT REPORTS 1) Sangam 2002 AID Bay Area chapter organized yet another successful fundraising concert "Sangam 2002" on September 22nd. The jugalbandi-style concert--- described by many in the audience as "brilliant", "a muscial treat" and "extremely well-coordinated" --- featured Millennium award-winner Chitravina N. RaviKiran performing with Grammy award-winner Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt. They were accompanied by T. H. Subaschandran and Subrata Bhattacharya. Close to 750 persons attended the event and made $3000 in pledges. AID volunteers contributed $2000.as a "challenge" grant for the attendees. Sangam 2002 featured an exhibit of art work by children from the California Tamil Academy titled "We are with You: Children of the Silicon Valley to the Children of the Narmada Valley." AID Bay Area volunteers sincerely thank all the generous donors, attendees, guests and all of our sponsors whose goodwill and solidarity even in this tough economic environment provided us with encouragement to bring this event to you. 2) Shri Rangaswamy Elango, panchayat president of the Kuthambakkam village in Tamil Nadu gave a very inspiring talk to a big crowd (about 50 people) in Stanford University on 15th September. Elango started off with explaing the current conditions in rural india - 54 years since independence, 70% of the rural population are still struggling for 2 pots of clean drinking water, 60 - 70% of the people are landless, rural unemployment is high, the failure rate in schools is high (99% in his village), inflation is high, there is rampant alcoholism, casteism, and general apathy all around. He traced most of these problems to centralization, industrialization and wrong policies like the ones promoted by green revolution which made the farmer dependent on external input. He then talked about what he has done in the last few years to tackle the above problems in his village Kuthambakkam - installation of non-conventional toor-dhal processing unit made by CFTRI Mysore, ground-nut processing unit independent of electricity, simplification of pasteurizing milk and manufacture of locally made pasteurizing unit, adaptation of bullock-cart wheel to soap and detergent making among many others. By generating employment opportunities for the people, by bringing in resources to the village and promoting local business, he has been able to reduce alcoholism, provide for basic needs so that parents now send their children to schools and turned Kuthambakkam into a model village. His next plan is to set up a panchayat academy where he plans to invite panchayat leaders from around the country for a week's stay at Kuthambakkam so that they can share and learn from each other about how to tackle the enormous rural problems. To learn more about this inspiring leader, visit http://www.indiatogether.org/govt/local/interviews/elango.htm http://www.samanvaya.com/gramswaraj/index.html 3) Bay Area fund-raiser raises $25,000 for Gujarat survivors EKTA and Coalition Against Communalism (CAC) organized the first major fund-raising event in the Bay Area for the survivors of the recent communal violence in Gujarat. The two-day event was held at the Mission Cultural Center in San Francisco (July 13) and the Jain Center of Northern California in Milpitas (July 14), and was in remembrance of the late M.P. and peace activist, Ahsan Jafri who was burnt alive by mobs, along with over 150 other people who had taken shelter at his home in Ahmedabad, on February 28th, 2002. In addition to moving presentations by the late Jafri's daughter and son-in-law, Nishrin and Najid Hussain, a recent documentary by Gopal Menon, Hey Ram: Genocide in the land of Gandhi, was screened. The program included spoken word, dance and and bhajans performed by number of local artists. The two fund-raising events raised over $25,000 for relief efforts in Gujarat. An additional matching contribution is expected from American India Foundation (AIF). SAATH, a member of Citizen's Initiative, was identified as the recipient of the funds raised. The AID Bay Area chapter was one of the co-sponsors of the fund-raiser and several members from the chapter actively volunteered and publicized the event to make the fund-raiser a success. Credits: Coalition Against Communalism and EKTA (http://cac.ektaonline.org). OTHERS 1) New AID Calendar - "Visible Work, Invisible Women" is the title of next year's AID calendar. Based on the award-winning photo exhibit of the same name by P. Sainath, this calendar is bound to make you think, question and see how you can make a difference. To reserve a copy, send mail to Ramani at ramani1976@y... OTHER SOURCES OF AID NEWS In addition to this quarterly newsletter detailing what happens in the AID-Bay Area chapter, there are news sources to find out about what is happening in other AID chapters. They include: 1) DISHAA - A 4-page, quarterly, thought-provoking newsletter has inspirational and insightful Articles, Poems and updates of the Current Activites and Projects of all AID chapters. Articles in Dishaa have been singularly responsible for inspiring many people to become contributors or volunteers. To read the latest copy of DISHAA, please visit http://www.aidindia.org/hq/publications/dishaa.htm 2) This Month in AID - This monthly newsletter has a summary of the previous month's AID activities, new projects and feedback, fund-raisers organized, new channels for helping the poor that have opened etc. To read the latest copy of TMIA, please visit http://www.aidindia.org/hq/publications/tmia.htm THANK YOU AID-BayArea sincerely thanks all its supporters and encourages feedback, questions and participation from the community. For more information, visit http://www.aidsfbay.org/