In Gratitude
We are still feeling sorrowful of the sudden passing
away on March 2, '07 of Dr. Kameshwar Razdan, the treasurer of
SHAMA, Inc.
We thank our retiring Board of Directors Ron
Strege, Dr Bal Sridhar, and Jenifer Ebel. SHAMA, Inc. members are
very grateful to each of these wonderful Board members who helped in
many ways make SHAMA, Inc. a successful organization.
Ron has given SHAMA, Inc. a
home in the UWSP multicultural office, a website in the
multicultural department and all the support from his office for our
diversity education and enrichment of our community.
Sridhar helped in developing SHAMA, Inc.’s mission
statement, presenting workshops at the Festival of India for all
these years, and being a wonderful Emcee.
His family support and his
advice at the Board meetings are highly appreciated. We wish his mom
a speedy recovery from this episode of ill health.
Jenifer and her Yoga Studio have been the
backbone of the Festival of India and all other Shama programs.
Jenifer promoted SHAMA, Inc. work in all her classes. She presented
Yoga workshops at the Festival every year. The first micro loan was
sponsored by one of her classes.
We wish her all well in her new phase of life.
We heartily thank Linda
Pluke for doing outstanding job of publicity and other promotional
activities for SHAMA, Inc., and co-coordinator of Festival of India.
She creates and mails almost 800 letters of invitation and reserve
the date each year, getting insurance for festival. The success of
the Festival is not possible without her dedicated hard work. Ron
Strege's support is indispensable for smooth running of the annual
event.
Many thanks to Steve
Bartelt
for being the Registered agent, for working on the ShamaKids
subcommittee & SHAMA, Inc.’s Executive Committee.
He diligently mailed out the ShamaKids renewal letters every
quarter and the kids’ letters and thank you notes to sponsors twice
a year. He gladly
agreed to be the secretary of SHAMA, Inc. after the passing away of
Dr Razdan. Steve takes up any task the organization needs help with.
I hope you return back soon after a speedy recovery, Steve.
We thank Alice Keefe for being the Director of a very worthy program
Shama Kids.
Ashok Bhargava
visited SHAMA, Inc. projects in
India
during the fall of 06 at his own expenses. He visited the
Mumbai
School, Mhaskal school,
village projects and was very impressed by SHAMA, Inc.'s work there.
Ashok met director of ShamaWELL work in Tamil Nadu and
Naidu
School in the village of Andhra Pradesh.
He met the activist for Rajasthan Project. He was very satisfied
with his personal interaction with Mr. Sevlam. Ashok spearheaded a
Library project for a city school in
Bangalore
and raised money single handed for the project. He is an asset to
SHAMA, Inc.
Devinder Sandhu
is a great cook and organizer for all our cooking fundraising
projects. He has been giving free Bhangra Classes every week for
this past year. He teaches Bhangra to families of Heritage
India
group, UWSP students and community members. He has done fundraising
for the Punjab Project. His father, Jagga Singh gave insight to the
Punjab Project at the last executive committee meeting.
Punjab
school is giving good women leadership training by letting women
students run the school for a day and giving them training to
compete with boys in sports. Punjab project is under good leadership and has lot of
potential for development. School building has a potential for lot
of village development work after school.
Robert Kreczner and Richa Chander gave great
leadership to the ShamaWell program. They have spent many hours
together to make micro loans a successful program. Richa has worked
hard with Linda on the WELL brochure.
She and Robert worked together to make the bookkeeping user
friendly. Richa has helped in every possible activity of SHAMA, Inc.
from the very beginning. Robert’s gentle way of helping has made a
big positive difference.
Jagdish
works tirelessly for all the SHAMA, Inc. Projects and aspects of
work in helping with tax filing, ShamaKids, ShamaWell and
bookkeeping of web sites.
Shreemayee has been coming from
Green Bay to help in fundraising, cooking and crafts
table, singing in Marshfield,
Portage
County Culture Fest, and Jazz Fest. Shreemayee gave guided tour of
the Orissa Project to Jyoti
in India. D P Kar
and Shreemayee are dedicated to the development of their extremely
poor village.
Terese Stauss has been working very hard during
her busiest time to file tax returns for SHAMA, Inc. and spending
many hours to understand the work of SHAMA, Inc.
Lynn Kirby, SHAMA, Inc. webmaster is very prompt in
updating the information given to her to keep up with ever changing
sponsors of ShamaKids and ShamaWell.
SHAMA, Inc.’s Local Work
Nick & Corinne Dempsey helped raise funds for
SHAMA by running a food stall for two days at the Jazz Fest in Stevens Point in September, 06, Labor Day
weekend.
The nineteenth Festival of India on
Sep 30, 06 involving UWSP and SPASH faculty, students & staff and
community was again a big success for advancing diversity education
and understanding.
A volunteers’ appreciation dinner and Diwali
celebration was organized by the Heritage
India
group, South Asia Society and SHAMA, Inc. at
Redeemer
Lutheran
Church
in Stevens Point
in Oct, 06, 2006.
Pam Luedtke and her Dance Ensemble gave a
workshop on Indian Folk dances at
Jefferson
School on Oct 15, 2006.
Students participated in Bhangra Dance and Rajasthani dance.
Pam was assisted by Cathy
Derezinski and Richa Chander. The program lasted more than two
hours.
UWSP South Asia Society Bhangra group and SHAMA,
Inc.'s children group performed at the 2nd annual
fundraising for Stevens Point Women's
Crisis Center at Clark Place,
November 2006. SHAMA, Inc. had a craft stall to fund raise for the Local Crisis Center.
SHAMA, Inc. set up a craft stall at the Annual
Tinsel Trail organized by the Junior Women's Club Nov 2006.
SHAMA, Inc. volunteers set up a food stall and
craft stall at the UW Marshfield Center to celebrate the Annual
Culture Fest February 2007. Shreemayee
Kar
sang Indian classical music for the audience. DP Kar &
Jagdish
volunteered to present a workshop on SHAMA, Inc.
Cathy Derezinski
organized the India Henna stall. Pam
Luedtke led the Tribal dances for the occasion.
Ashok, Jagdish
and
Jyoti went to St. Louis to gather support for SHAMA, Inc. at
the invitation of Dr Suthar and his family Feb 07.
SHAMA, Inc. volunteers helped South Asia Society
set up a food stall to raise funds for SHAMA, Inc. at the annual
Portage County Culture Fest May 2007.
SHAMA, Inc. also set up a
craft stall. SHAMA, Inc. and the South Asia Society Bhangra dance
groups, lead by Devinder Sandhu and Pam Luedtke, gave dance
performances at the Fest and Shreemayee
Kar
gave a classical Indian music vocal rendition.
SHAMA, Inc. workers helped ADIRE in setting up an
Indian food stall for three days at the Energy Fair in Amherst area June 07 to raise funds for the
Orissa project.
Lauri Martin Keefe, SHAMA Heritage India Group
and South Asia Society UWSP organized the third annual Holi and
Rakhi festival celebration at
Mead
Park July 30, 07.
India
work
Jyoti
and Shreemayee visited the worksites in villages of Orissa near Cuttack June 07.
This work is lead by Durga Prasad Kar and Shreemayee. The bio
gas plant, mushroom growing, tailoring training, making the pressed
brick, construction of a health care building and elementary school,
gardening, cow and goat care and solar energy projects were running
successfully. Jyoti had a
mushroom dinner grown by ShamaWELL women and got four Kurtas from
the woman trained in sewing with ShamaWELL loans. SHAMA, Inc. is
really helping the poorest of poor and all our efforts are changing
the lives of the poor. Poor kids in a village having access to the
computer is a very energizing sight for any SHAMA, Inc. worker. We
must work hard to support the program.
Mumbai, P N Doshi College started two Masters
Degree programs and an ESL Language lab to help poor kids become
more competent for professional school entrance exams.
SHAMA, Inc. gave 100 micro loans to women.
Organizers are getting 100% loan payments back to help more women
with the same money.
Jyoti
met an instructor who was teaching in the computer training class.
This instructor had received her computer training with
ShamaWELL loans. She was very proud to say that she returned her
loan of Rs 15, 000 completely. Two women dropped in the SHAMA, Inc.
office to pay back their monthly loan installment.
All the women in the ShamaWELL program are
returning their loans and are doing very well in their profession.
The lady from Mumbai slum who got a loan to cater food to the nearby
offices and shops has hired four other women to help her in her
work. The women who got a bigger loan for a pickle project is
flourishing very well. All this is possible because of the able
leadership of SPRJ Kanyashala Trust.
Jyoti
met the room full of women who receive the scholarship money. They
told their sad stories of sex discrimination in the family and
outside the family. They were inspired to help us in our ShamaKids
and ShamaWELL programs.
SHAMA, Inc. got a bigger and better office at P N
Doshi college with a private restroom. It used to be the trustees’
office. Modeled after ShamaKids, the school started their own
program called DIYA to sponsor the education of a poor child. They
got 140 kids sponsored by donors in India during their very first
effort. Shama work is a real
catalyst for good education in a real sense.
Mhaskal
Village
Click on pictures for larger views
Making school uniforms |
Jyoti
gave graduation certificates to the village women who successfully
completed the course at the sewing school.
100% of the women succeeded in learning the sewing skills. They were
stitching the uniforms for ShamaKids in the village and in Mumbai.
They were doing a good job of sewing the uniform and earning the
money from ShamaKids funds. |
Graduating student getting certificate |
SHAMA, Inc. gardening
and food cooperative had a dramatic success this year. Their revenue
was ten times the money we loaned them for cooperative. Villagers
paid back part of their loan by handing me the check in the name of
the SPRJK Trust. It was very rewarding to see the smiles of success
on their faces. The village had abundance of crops. They wanted the
means to sell the crops outside the village.
Jyoti
saw the pipes and control booth that helps to draw water from the
nearby canal. I saw the good example of vertical gardening with good
vegetables hanging from the plants.
Vertical gardening |
Successful gardens |
Water controls |
Heera Bai's house
under construction ('05) |
ShamaKid growing
into village leader |
SHAMA, Inc.’s work
became an object of envy for the neighboring villages.
Jyoti visited the neighboring villages, one village
is 100 % tribal but there is no means of transportation to connect
those smaller villages to Mhaskal. Tribal villagers from Mhaskal
wanted some brick housing, the kind Pat Reckrey built for one woman, Heera Bai, in the village. Tribal villagers leave their dwelling of
mud and straw in the rains and take their kids out of school. They
asked for some solution for their big problem of housing made with
bricks.
SHAMA, Inc. has
decided to start a brick kiln in the village to give employment and
means to make their houses. Their kids can stay in school. P
N Doshi students and scholarship recipients are going to
help the villagers build houses after the model for Habitat for
Humanity. We need to raise funds for that. The
SHAMA, Inc. committee has approved to give a three wheeler
(an all purpose vehicle) to continue the development of the Mhaskal
village and may help in expanding the work in neighboring villages.
SHAMA, Inc. has approved to expand the
gardening program to the nearby villages.
SHAMA, Inc.’s work
was honored by the Indian Government. Mhaskal village, along
with two other villages in all of India, got the meaningful
development award in Delhi. The woman village Head, Shaguna Bai,
along with SHAMA, Inc. volunteers went
to Delhi
to receive the National award. Jyoti
has a picture with the award.
The ShamaKids program has created a village
leader. He takes great interest in village development programs and
the ShamaKids program. He is going to high school and uses the
bike given by the ShamaKids program.
Jyoti
connected with All India Women Conference (Akhil Bhartiya Mahila
Parishad) established 1918. Vijay Lakshmi Pandit (Nehru’s Sister)
was the first President. Freedom fighter and Poetess of India
Sarojani Naidu was also its President. The Police Chief Kiran Bedi
is a very active person of the organization.
SHAMA, Inc. has
approved a program to
train women
for Taxi driving
and Car repair in Delhi
(WOW). New Delhi is set to host The Commonwealth
Games in 2010, and our trained women taxi drivers will be great for
that time. Radio taxi has made taxi driving much safer because the
head office can hear all conversations of all taxis. The president
of AIWC west wing Mrs. Harinder Kaur along with Dr Shivani Mittra
are leading the project in
Delhi. The Progressive Society of India is
helping in the Women on Wheels Project (WOW). The program is a real
call of need. See the
article attached.
About SHAMA, Inc.
Mission ||
History ||
Officers ||
Board of Directors || Annual Reports ||
By-Laws
