April 20, 2001
Dear Friends,
It is time once again to summarize recent progress in Shadhika's activities so you can see what your contributions helped accomplish. It has been an eventful year.
Juthica was not able to visit India this year. We have been in regular touch with each of our projects via e-mail and FAX.
1. Paripurnata has completed architectural planning for a new facility and has secured a significant portion of the required funding for construction from a variety of sources. Total cost for building a facility for 30 residents is approximately US $ 85,000. We assured Mrs. Siromoni that Shadhika will contribute toward construction, but that we prefer to wait until all other resources are exhausted. We hope we can fill in any remaining gap and make it possible to actually launch construction within the current year.
Meanwhile Paripurnata's regular program is continuing. Last year a highly competent full-time director joined the staff, relieving Mrs. Siromoni from the responsibilities of day to day operation of the halfway house. We quickly developed an excellent relationship with Mrs. Sujatha Ross. Regrettably, we just learned that Sujatha was forced to leave the position because her father's death requires that she move from Calcutta to her family home. Mrs. Siromoni is looking for a replacement.
2. HOPE School found that their existing physical facility was inadequate to house the additional vocational training program Shadhika was funding for them. They used our grant funds to purchase the planned equipment (loom, spinning machine, knitting machine, and stitching machine) then supplemented the remaining balance with other funds to construct a sufficient size training room to accommodate the new program. The new space is about to be completed. We are in contact with Mrs. Mukherjee and awaiting her updated budget proposal for the first year of the training program.
3. Punjabi Hospital launched the well-baby and family planning project we funded last July. In six months 380 pregnant women went through basic child nutrition seminars, had a medical checkup, were given medication kits, and family planning information. During this period there was only one premature delivery in this patient population.
Due to the catastrophic earthquake in Gujrat in January, the training seminars were stopped in February and March, as the Hospital's resources were devoted to help organize rescue and medical help for the stricken region. Our program is resuming in April. We are planning to fund this program for a two year period.
Last year Juthica presented an application for supplemental funds for this project to the Southern French chapter of FAWCO (Federation of American Women's Clubs Overseas) where we have contacts. They have very little money, but they were impressed with the project and awarded their whole kitty of liquid funds of $350 to Shadhika. The chapter president then sponsored the Punjabi Hospital proposal and presented it to the International FAWCO agency on behalf of the local chapter. We have just learned that the proposal won FAWCO support for 2001, and we will be receiving US $2,500 shortly, to be transmitted to Punjabi Hospital.
Current plans are that Juthica will go to India in January 2002 to visit hopefully all three of our projects. She will also visit the Uddami project, run by an American couple in Calcutta, where they teach deprived adolescents computer skills. We made contact with them recently, and this looks like a project worthy of Shadhika support.
Our fund raising event this year will be on Sunday, September 30. We are mailing out a postcard first to have you save the date, and a formal invitation to our list of members in mid August. Please plan to come. We hope to have a brief and lively performance by young Indian dancers as last year, and of course, good food and refreshments as usual. We will bring you up to date on project developments. And most important, we will again have an exciting silent auction of great prizes, a raffle item, door prizes, and boutique of artifacts. Last year we had spectacular success, we doubled our previous record of funds raised to over $21,000. We would like to match that performance this year, and we need your help. Starting these projects presents us with a responsibility: we need to continue them, and only you can make that possible.
We are looking forward to seeing you on September 30!
Juthica Stangl