Happy Independence Day! On this day, sixty-two years ago, India was formed into a sovereign nation.

We look forward to a day when all Indians can live with the dignity that is their birthright and we hope that we can all work together to make this dream happen.

Attached are the summaries of Committees involved in Sangam India that are in need of volunteers. These summaries were made by Katie Bush and were based on the content from our Initiatives section. These were introduced during the last General Body Meeting.

In addition to the ones summarized below, volunteers are also needed for the following committees:

• Event Planning
• Public Relations/Advertising
• Fundraising

Check out the summaries that have been written here (.pdf)

1. Our organization and its purpose, as well as an introduction to the board members.
2. Registration forms were filled out. If you would like you fill out a registration form, we invite you to do so.  You can visit http://sangamindia.org/registration and fill out a form on the internet.
3. Our committees were introduced
4. Past projects – we briefed our members on events that happened since the last meeting in January including the projects that we had undertaken and the fire that occurred in the Ramavaram slum in June.
5. Setup of the organization – explaining the working of abroad teams and local teams to work on various projects
6. Future plans in the MGR Nagar slum
7. Asked for input - most of the input regarded how we can expand our member base and get more youth involved from other colleges.

In order to synchronize the abroad team’s planning and the Chennai team’s action and implementation, the information will be streamlined and funneled through the US public relations coordinator.  It is more efficient to have one point of contact so we will have one person in charge of passing on information from abroad to India.  As the process is put into action, we will work out the kinks in the system.  The abroad team will be using a wiki to share information and collaborate across country lines.  Please feel free to send us queries and suggestions.

A feature we worked on for the new site was Sangam India – Around the World. We thought of this idea as a way to show potential volunteers (like you, we hope!) what people are doing around the world to aid in our cause.  Over the last few months, people have been involved in developing promotional materials, skits, educational curriculae, and sanitation and development research work.  Volunteers have stepped forward from places like Australia, the UAE, England, and the United States.  Their immense contribution helps us do our job in the most efficient and educated manner.

We hope this map will demonstrate to that regardless of where you live in the world, we’d love to have you involved in our project, and we could certainly use your help in our group.

Thanks to our numerous volunteers from different cities in India as well as around the planet; and we depend on you to run our projects!

Check out: Sangam India – Around the World.

After almost three months in the making, we are excited to announce the launch of our new website today! Thanks so much to everyone who has been involved. The suggestion of making a new website began about 7 months ago, when Tina Ye, a designer from Boston, MA suggested to make a new site and volunteered to be the one to do it. What emerged from that idea is this website and we hope you all will enjoy it. An immense thanks goes to Tina for her tireless work, long nights, and patient responses to emails for many weeks.

The new website is more than a redesign however. We took this opportunity to write out completely new content for the website, which can be seen under the about and the initiatives sections. This was also a large task that involved many, many people:

Our Logo – written by Tina Ye, who also made us a new logo.
Mission Statement – written by Sriram Ramgopal, Nivedita Gunturi, and Navyatha Mohan.
Our History – written by Priyanka Boghani
Our Model – written by Gautam Bagga
Board Members – written by the board
Initiatives at a Glance – written by Apta Errabelli
Initiatives: Healthcare and Nutrition – written by Sriram Ramgopal
Initiatives: Education and Mentoring - by Rifa Khan, Priyanka Boghani, and Sriram Ramgopal
Initiatives: Hygiene and Sanitation – by Katie Bush
Initiatives: Women’s Issues - by Nivedita Gunturi
Ways to Help – by Priyanka Boghan

In addition, thanks to Adrienne Nobbe for meticulously editing the website for mistakes.

You will also see a new section called Join the Movement – which is about bringing the Sangam message to your city, and how to make a difference in your communities, today.

We hope you all enjoy the new website and please visit often – as you know we work hard to keep the site as up to date as possible. Of course, we’d appreciate your feedback!

There has been a lot that has happened over the last week:

1. The visit to the MGR Nagar Slum on Saturday, which was a success. We’ll share more about that in a post later today.
2. The new website, which is in its final stages and should be coming out this weekend.
3. The survey, which is set to go this Saturday, at 5:00 PM.

We’ll need volunteers for the survey, so if you can come, please do contact us!

More about these three will be shared in upcoming posts.

Once again, we’re very sorry for the downtime and stay tuned for more updates.

The Sangam India logo seeks to embody the goals, beliefs, and hope of the Sangam spirit. We have adopted for the heart of our logo a classic symbol of transcendence: the lotus flower. Born into darkness and muck, the lotus eventually emerges high above its watery roots to bloom into a lovely flower. This symbolizes the core of our work, in which we assist and encourage those who are disadvantaged in courageously transcending their circumstances to achieve dignity, independence, and equity. The colors of the lotus petals also carry meaning for us: the red signals determination, strength, and vigor, while the light brown symbolizes the dirt of day-to-day challenges and hardships faced by many. At their intersection is a vibrant green, representing vitality and growth. This expresses our belief that when great determination is combined with firsthand experience of hardship, tremendous growth can happen. Finally, for the Sangam India typeface, we have chosen Archer, designed by Hoefler and Frere-Jones, for its welcomingly open forms and bold yet graceful feel.

-Tina Ye

• Register for Sangam India to:
  • Receive news of our activities, via our monthly newsletter (you can also sign up for the newsletter without registering)
  • Help plan or lead Sangam India activities in any capacity that you desire
  • Participate in Sangam India events
• Registration Requirements:
  • Anybody can be a member. You can participate from anywhere in the world, and we accept members of all ages.
  • Registration is free.
• Registration Options:
  1. Fill out the Registration form online
  2. Download and print a copy of the Registration Form (pdf.)

The form should take less than 5 minutes to fill out. We hope you’ll take the time to fill it out so that we can keep up to date records of the people that are involved and how they can best help our team.

Thanks for your time and for joining the Sangam India team!

Ramavaram is an urban slum just off of the Nandambakkam highway. There are 110 houses with approximately 400 residents at Ramavaram, most of whom are daily wage earners supporting women, infants, young children and the aged. Starting March 2008, a group of students and young professionals under the name Sangam India had taken up the initiative of helping the community earn back their dignity and quality of life. However, tragedy struck us early Monday morning when news arrived that the entire slum had caught fire and had been razed to the ground in a matter of hours.

At 1:30am on Monday 15th June, one of the houses close to the highway bridge caught on fire from a short circuit. The fire quickly raged through, consuming one house after another, abetted by thatched roofs and trees. The inhabitants hurriedly escaped their homes and gathered onto the street nearby. Luckily no one suffered any injuries. According to the inhabitants, the fire engine arrived at 3 am, but by then the whole slum and all their savings and belongings had been destroyed.

We heard of the shocking news at 9am and made an emergency visit to Ramavaram at 4pm. A group of about 25 of us visited them and listened to their devastating experience. There was nothing left of the slum but the mud walls that supported the houses a feet above the ground. The people seemed to be in a state of utter hopelessness, completely unsure of what was to happen to them and where they were to move next. As we talked to them we were able to gather some information about the government response. The Ward Counsellor had arrived early and distributed breakfast packets and water tanks for the entire slum population. The Panchayat House had made arrangements for lunch and dinner. The government had handed over Rs. 2000/-, 5 kg of rice, a kerosene coupon, and a saree and a lungi to each family of the slum.

The families were to assume temporary shelter at an auditorium nearby. Meanwhile, the government has promised to rebuild them a slum at Perungalathur, near Tambaram, some 25kms from Ramavaram and that was understood to take 3 days for completion. The inhabitants are unsure if any arrangement for meals has been made for the next few days. They do not have any clothes but the ones in which they escaped the fire. They have lost their money and the children have lost their school uniforms and books. All medical records and other documents have also been destroyed.

After assessing the situation at Ramavaram, we decided to act immediately to help the families. Some of us stayed back to listen and talk to the people offering our support, while some went out to buy basic necessities. We decided to buy and distribute to each family, a packet of Marie Gold Biscuits, a sheet, a bucket, toothpowder and soap. By 7pm we were able to buy the biscuits, sheets and place the order for buckets but we had to postpone distribution as it got too dark to carry on.

An emergency meeting was convened at 7:30pm where we shared the stories of the people and discussed their situation and immediate needs. Below is a summary of the meeting.

The situation:
No roofs above their heads, no clothes, no remaining savings.
Food and water for the day provided.
Food and water for next few days uncertain.
Slight drizzle early in the evening.

The people:
Low morale, vulnerable babies, poor hygiene and sanitation facilities.

The government response:
Rs.2000/-, a veshti and a lungi distributed to each family.
Food and water arrangements made for Day 1.
Temporary shelter – unviable
Rehabilitation – will take 3-4days, is 25kms away and quality of life uncertain.
Police patrolling present.

Our immediate Plan of Action:
Distribute the following items, 1 per family.
Day 1: Only morale and emotional support
Day 2: Marie Gold Biscuits
Bedsheet
Bucket
Toothpowder
Soap
Constitute a Disaster Management Team to plan and develop rehabilitation activities.
Constitute a Fund-raiser Team to undertake massive fund-raising over the next few days.
Boost the Public Relations Committee to help spread the word and garner help.

Immediate Future:
utensils and some other basic necessities like rice or oil. Needs will be assessed and decisions made.
Organize clothes drive – clothes for men, women and children.
Sponsor families.
Sponsor uniforms and books for the school-going children.
Provide moral support and be physically and emotionally present in their time of need.

How You Can Help
Sangam India boasts over 300 members worldwide, and right now is the time for those 300 members to come together to help our friends. Here are some ways you can immediately help:

1. We need funds. If you are interested in sending money from outside India, please contact Sujan Pakala at sujan.pakala@gmail.com. He will be handling all donations. Within India, please contact Navya at nchundu@gmail.com. If you have any ideas for fundraising, please run those by Navya as well.
2. We have clothing coming from the US on July 20, but in the meantime we need to run an emergency clothing drive so we can supply each family with at least one more set of clothes from what the government has given. They have not provided children’s clothes, leaving the children with only undergarments. If you are within India, please gather together usable clothes. You can contact Jaba at 91 9940661886.
3. We need our legal team to be fully functional. For us to be able to help these families to the best of our ability, we need to increase our legal standing. We really need people to donate some time to this. If you are a lawyer, or know a lawyer, or are willing to help work through some paperwork, please contact Navyatha at navyatha.mohan@gmail.com.
4. We need you to spread the word. Please tell everyone. Use every modality you have – Facebook, email, instant messenger, SMS, phone calls – to inform your friends of our needs. If you have any PR questions, please contact Priyanka at priyanka.boghani@sangamindia.org.