The Association for India's Development (AID), MIT and Boston Chapter hosted a fundraising benefit lunch on July 20, at The Maharaja in Harvard Square to raise awareness and support immediate relief and long term rehabilitation efforts in aid of the June 18 flood affected survivors of Uttarakhand. Attendees learnt about the complex issues that caused the disaster and the ongoing relief activities by various AID partners on the ground.

Keerthana Krishnan, the Secretary of the Boston Chapter of AID began the proceedings with an overview of AID and its work. AID strives for a just, sustainable and equitable development for the most marginalized communities in India. She also mentioned that AID pursues a holistic model of development by supporting projects that span a wide variety of fields including agriculture, anti-corruption, education, livelihood, community empowerment, health, disaster relief and rehabilitation, environment, women’s issues and social justice. She invited interested people to join regular AID meetings at MIT every Sunday afternoon.

Somnath Mukherji, the AID Development Coordinator then spoke about the massive floods in the northern state of Uttarakhand that have washed away several villages, towns, roads and bridges leaving a trail of death and destruction. The data about the disaster gave an understanding of the enormity of the situation that people in Uttarakhand are dealing with. The National Disaster Management Authority estimates over 11000 deaths, 2397 houses and 194 bridges damaged, and that 4200 villages have been affected by these floods. He discussed the various complex causes such as meteorological, institutional and unpreparedness of the state. He ended his presentation by going over all the initiatives by AID in the state since the disaster.  

Pledges were taken from attendees to support the ongoing efforts for Uttarakhand and they received photographs by local photographer, Don Perrault as a token of appreciation.

“I would like to sensitize my friends and colleagues about the disaster and would like to help out in raising support for the ongoing Relief and Rehabilitation work”, said Indranil Sarkar, a resident of Quincy. Maulik Nagri, a finance professional in the Boston area felt that it was a “very informative presentation about on the ground rehabilitation and relief efforts; importantly information shared by AID and its partners is not covered by mainstream media". Srinivas Prasad, a graduate student from MIT felt that it was "an enlightening account of the rescue efforts in Uttarakhand”.

Association for India's Development (AID) has responded immediately to the devastation in Uttarakhand by contacting its partners on the ground and sending them $100,000 in financial support. Currently, AID supports 5 partner organizations in Uttarakhand including Goonj, People's Science Institute (PSI), Himalayan Environmental Studies and Conservation Organization (HESCO), Shri Bhuvaneshwari  Mahila Ashram (SBMA) and SEWA Uttarakhand.

AID gratefully acknowledged the members of the Massachusetts community including the attendees to the lunch and the employees of Mathworks who have generously supported the Uttarakhand relief efforts by AID thus far. Reiterating that all relief funds raised will go towards supporting long term rehabilitation efforts for the next three years in Uttarakhand, AID appealed to the community to support their work.  

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