The New England Chapter of the Ekal Vidyalaya Foundation of USA, held its donor appreciation dinner on June 14, 2015 at the Holiday Inn in Mansfield, MA. The event featured the extremely talented singing group from India featuring Rana Chatterjee and Sangeeta Malekar who enthralled the audience with delightful music.

Ekal Vidyalaya is the largest NGO in rural India that works to bringing holistic development to rural remote areas  using education as the primary vehicle. Accessing these areas is difficult and thus no NGOs venture in these terrains leaving the children completely without education. It currently is in 52,000 villages reaching 1.5 million children and nearly 30 million adults. The scale and sustainable nature of the organization is a true testament to the successful model that is impacting millions. 

Dr. Dravida, the President of the New England Chapter, welcomed the audience,and emphasized the importance of Ekal. â€œWhen you ask children in the US what they cannot do if they cannot read, write or add they say things like, I can't read a text or send an email or buy groceries and figure out how much cash they can get back. Everytime you send a text or read an email please remember the children at Ekal. Ekal also has incredible value for your charity dollar. Every dollar of contribution matched by 3 dollars worth of volunteer's time and energy and guidance. 4X multiplication of contribution," said Dravida.
  
The event was arguably one of the finest in New England thanks to the dedication of the tremendous number of volunteers who have been attracted to the Ekal cause. Their sincerity, selflessness and extreme dedication was clearly visible. The executive committee with Parveen Minocha, Chetna Sanghvi and Anil Chawla, volunteer leaders, Pushpa Baskaran, Rajesh Bhutani, Rishi and Niti Kapoor, Anu Upneja, Meena Sachdeva,  Anurupa Chinar, Amrit and Raksha Soni, Leenam Dalal, Dr. Harshad Sanghavi and several others put in many hours to ensure success.

Other than the great music, the highlight of the evening was the recognition of youth and community leaders who had worked hard to support Ekal. Aspen Nehra, a sophomore at Suffolk University who spent two weeks in Ekal villages living in very simple conditions. “I had visited India nearly ten years ago and was very depressed to see a hopeless poverty. In the Ekal villages however what I saw was tremendous hope and optimism. It was a sheer joy to be in the village and the children and the villagers were very happy, a testament to the great work done by Ekal,” said Aspen.

Yet another highlight of the evening was the donation by Ekal Youth Leader Neeharika Munjal who donated all her pocket money to Ekal.   Her parents as a gift added some more to that collection and now she has adopted a village in Mathura. "When I heard about Ekal I felt impelled to do something. I felt I was so privileged and I felt my pocket money could be put to use to help Ekal children get an education.” Akhil and Anu Upneja donated a portion of their summer earning. Mansi Danke, Sanjana Puri, Soumil Sanghvi, Nandini Seetharaman put together dance, sports and poetry competitions to raise significant funds. Megha Dalal a consistent volunteer at Ekal was also honored. Astha Agarwal, the first youth volunteer at Ekal came back from college in Canada to attend the event. The ASHA group from the Acton-Boxborough school system, Janani Baskaran,  Audreela Deb, Vrinda Agarwal  and Teja Pallikonda worked to raise enough funds to adopt a village. Ram Nehra, the founder of Ekal New England blessed the youngsters. Nikhil Jagan and Esha Shetty who won prizes at the Ekal Indi Art contest were honored for donating their winnings and even adding to it.

Community leaders, Neena Gulhati, Madhusudhan Akkibal, Jharna Madan, Rishi  and Niti Kapoor,  Raksha and Amrit Soni were honored for their tremendous contributions. Puran Dang offered his salutations to the leaders.

Ekal New England is well on its way to gain support for nearly 1000 schools. For me it was wonderful to see the great team of supporters who opened their hearts and gave so generously to support the children of Ekal.

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