Association for India’s Development (AID) Boston organized its annual symposium at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) on July 17th, 2010. The symposium was attended by more than 60 people. The program featured  talks by AID founder Ravi Kuchimanchi and long time fellow Aravinda Pillalamarri in addition to a summary of AID Boston projects and activities.

Ravi outlined how AID as an organization came into existence and how it grew from 5 volunteers in a single location (a “chapter”) -- College Park in Maryland -- in 1987 to 50 chapters  with more than 1000 volunteers currently. The organization disbursed close to $1 million last year towards various projects and social activities in India.

The centerpiece of his talk was his bringing to fore the interconnected nature of problems at the grass-root level, and how AID responds to these problems. By not constraining thoughts or energy to one area, AID with its interconnected understanding of the nature of problems, was able to understand how sometimes certain problems are merely symptoms of bigger underlying problems. This provided the insight that to have a deeper impact it needed to act on the underlying problems.

He also presented the innovative Hay Box that is successfully used to aid cooking rice in several villages. This simple innovation costs only about 80 rupees and reduces cooking time and firewood requirement by more than half. Ravi encouraged volunteers to visit projects during their trips to India and enrich their lives and the lives of people in the village for whom there are very few friends in this world.

Followed by Ravi’s talk was a brief by AID Boston volunteers on its different engagements. The chapter spent close to $65,000 towards projects and fellowships in 2009; this number is expected to exceed $100,000 in 2010 as the AID Boston and MIT chapters expect to support more work in future. Following AID’s philosophy on interconnectedness of problems the chapter has projects spanning a range of issues – in areas of Education, Agriculture, Health Care, Relief and Rehabilitation and Community Empowerment.

The other main speaker of the day, Aravinda, highlighted the connection between hunger and health and focused on issues of malnutrition and the politics of the food industry. Hunger, many reliable studies have shown afflicts a vast number of Indians and is responsible for a great number of health issues. “But is this priority reflected in the Indian government's approach to tackling health issues?” she asked. Evidently not: as she showed, the government had AIDS, TB and Polio as its top health priority. She also pointed out how the food industry is hard at work to undermine naturally occurring traditional foods and food habits. She urged the audience to become part of AID's many campaigns to address issues of hunger and health.

As part of the question and answer session t, when Ravi and Aravinda were asked about their choice of life as a full-time activists, Ravi replied:“We enjoy what we do and the work strengthens us. There are others who are doing far more with far less at their disposal.” In answer to another question whether the current situation in India was deliberate and “by design,” Ravi felt that it had a lot to do with the imperfect importation of western ideals and institutions but not of the legal and human-rights fabric that could provide a basis of a life of dignity for all. Both Ravi and Aravinda encouraged the attendees to join the Boston chapter's weekly meetings. The chapter has more than 40 active volunteers who meet every week on Sundays at the Harvard Science Center and many of whom have visited projects in India. The chapter invites new volunteers to join the group and help it take on new engagements. Learn more at www.aidboston.org.

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