Updates: Week of June 21st, 2009

A couple of updates to share:

• Skits: Skit translation has officially started. We are working on translating the skits into colloquial Tamil. This immense task is being done by Ms. Krithika Rajaraman of Birmingham, Alabama and assisted by Mr. Ram Ramgopal from Boston Massachusetts.
  
  
• Data Entry: A team of volunteers from the United States helped us immensely by compiling the data from our June 16th visit into an easy to use, digital format. This data will be wonderful for our follow up work with the residents of the Ramavaram community. Thanks to Aparna Bhaskara and her team: Suchitra Pakala, Krishnakanth Chiravuri, Srikanth Chiravuri, Sai Santosh, Kamalesh Donthula and Sujan Pakala for their efforts.
  
  
• Educational Aid: Sangam India members Apoorvaa and Malar are making good headway in providing aid to allow Amudha and Meena to continue their studies. More information on this as it becomes available.
  
  
• Registration Forms: We now have new registration forms, as we start to collect data about our members and the skills they have to offer our team. This is a step we are making towards becoming a non-profit organization. Registration forms will be made available online as well. More about this in a later post.
  

Update at Sangam India

These are a few of the things that have been going on over the last week:

• Exciting new plans for a website are in the works. The website will be designed by Tina Ye and the content will be written by our board members as well as by several guests who've generously contributed their time and expertise. We're all looking forward to this site and we'd love your input on what you think should be included in it.
• We are working hard to achieving Non-Profit Organization (NPO) status in the United States. We have written our mission statement, as you can see in a previous post.
  
• We are continuing planning of our Educational Programme and Vasundhra is doing research on Vocational training programmes that we can implement when we get started again in June.
  

Facebook Message and Call for Help

This message was sent to all of our facebook members today:

Hello Sangam India Members!

I hope this message finds you well. Thank you so much for joining our group and extending your support for our mission.
Sangam India is undergoing a lot of exciting changes this month.

1. We are developing a new, updated website with exciting features and brand new content. For this, we need people who have creative ideas, writing ability, or experience with other non-profit organizations.

2. We are also working on getting non-profit status, registering in the United States. For this, we need people who have some knowledge of legal procedures, experience with other non-profits, or is ready to learn something new!

3. We have recently started a new Educational Programme focusing on positive thinking and values-based education, and we are working on curriculum and material development. For this, we need people who are creative, like games, and may have experience working with children, especially underprivileged children - in any country.

We would like everyone to get involved with these activities, since it is a chance for everyone who is not in Chennai to roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty!

If you are interested in helping us with any of these activities, please contact us on Facebook, or you can email me at nivedita.gunturi@sangamindia.org, or Sriram Ramgopal at sriram.ramgopal@sangamindia.org. We look forward to hearing from you, and we'd love all the help we can get!

As always, we encourage you to join the mailing list for our monthly newsletter at http://list.sangamindia.org, and keep an eye on the blog at http://blog.sangamindia.org, since it is frequently updated and you can stay tuned to everything that is happening!

Thanks!

Nivedita Gunturi

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