Panel on '"Racial Solidarity as South Asians"

As part of India Day, a committee of young adults hosted a panel discussion on '"Racial Solidarity as South Asians". The group, called SAYAAA, are part of the second generation of ISW community members who on their own have raised their voices by organizing vigils, posting on FB and hosting podcasts and writing articles. They discussed how they educated themselves, strategies to combat racism and how to get more involved in the future. Click here to read more about the session, watch the panel video and take the survey if your would like to learn more and join.

SAAYA Committee: Shubh Agrawal, Keerthana Balakrishnan, Danush Chelladurai, Tanvi Jain, Aditya Khanna, Kavya Raghunathan, Aarshiya Sachdeva
Advisors: Raj & Shiamin Melville

SAYAA, South Asian Youth Activists and Allies
An Initiative by the new ISW Young Professionals group

We are excited to announce a new ISW group to reach out to young professionals of South Asian descent.

The first activity is committed to social justice and racial equity initiatives in the South Asian community. SAYAA, or "South Asian Youth Activists and Allies", is sending out a survey to gauge the interest in pursuing this endeavour.  Click here to take it. SAAYA also plans to host an online discussion about these issues.

The group - through dialogues, education, disseminating of resources, and engaging with peers and the wider South Asian community - hopes to advance the mission of organizing social justice activism, standing in solidarity with Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) peers and self-reflecting on the community’s role in perpetuating injustice within the South Asian community.

The group is very interested in working with individuals ages 14-35. If one is outside this age range but would like to provide opinions/suggestions, one can still access the shared knowledge and resources. Please forward the survey to young professionals you might know. For any additional questions or information, please email: SAAYA@ISWOnline.org

SURVEY  https://bit.ly/SAYAASurvey 

SAAYA Committee: Shubh Agrawal, Keerthana Balakrishnan, Danush Chelladurai, Tanvi Jain, Aditya Khanna, Kavya Raghunathan, Aarshiya Sachdeva
Advisors: Raj & Shiamin Melville

Dear friends,

Hope you and your family are doing well during these difficult times. Please let us know if ISW can do anything to help you in any way.

  

For the India Society, one of our biggest efforts this year is the expansion of the India Center. We were writing to give you an update on the progress. 

India Center Construction: 

After “Bhoomi Poojan” ceremony in October, we started full steam ahead on construction. The foundation was poured in December, steel for the building was ordered, and plans and paperwork for building permit were submitted to Town of Shrewsbury. The plan was to start the site work in March. Unfortunately, the pandemic hit us hard, all non-essential commercial construction was halted by orders of the Governor, permits were delayed, and work at ISW came to a screeching halt. 

The Expansion Committee along with general contractor and architect continued to meet on a weekly basis, and the slowdown gave us an opportunity to make improvements, especially in design of the lobby that we have named India Pavilion, but overall construction plans suffered a significant setback. As phase two of reopening has started in Massachusetts, we are happy to inform you that we are back on track for construction. Town of Shrewsbury has issued the building permit. Remodeling of the old lobby is already underway. The steel structure will go up soon and current plans are to have the construction completed by November.

You can see more pictures and drone video of the construction made by our outgoing India Youth Group (IYG) president Raunit Kohli, here 

Fundraising: 

Unfortunately, we have not been able to do much fundraising over last several months. Our plan was to focus our efforts on gala at Mechanics hall in June with a prominent Indian artist, but that has now postponed to at least 2021. Some of you have been extremely generous in their offer of providing us a loan, and we certainly intend to take advantage of that offer. At the same time, to ensure cash flow, we have signed up with DCU for a construction loan. We are hoping to minimize the amount that we have to borrow, and a lot will depend on funds received against our current pledges as well as new pledges we are able to generate. 

We want to thank those of you who have shown great support of the project by making significant pledges. Many of you have made a full payment against your pledge and others are making payments over a three-year period. 

• Many of you have may also know others who are on the fence in terms of making a pledge or increasing your own pledge waiting to see the actual construction started. Please reach out to any one of us and we will be happy to meet with you personally.
• If you have made a pledge, but have not fully paid your pledge, may we request you to make a payment sooner if you can?

Thank you again for your contributions! 

Sincerely,

Ashish Cowlagi, President ISW
Rajiv Dayal, Chair, Expansion Committee
Sanjay Shah, Chair, Fundraising Committee

ISW & Ekta Jain brings you Free Dance for fun virtual class. Join for an an hour of fun and exciting dance class. Learn at your own pace. See the details in the flyer below.

As I reflect on the events of the last several weeks, I am drawn to Rabindranath Tagore’s stirring prayer:

While tempting to turn to prayer, the recent events call for reflection, learning and action. The continued acts of violence against people of color is unacceptable and inexcusable. We are saddened by the countless lives taken and the racist incidents across the country. That is not enough. Today we have to rise up and stand in solidarity with the Black community and say together that Black Lives Matter.

We are an organization of immigrants whose mission includes building bridges with the communities we live in. In this moment we need to reflect on the privileges we enjoy from equitable immigration, an outcome of the Civil Rights Movement. We need to reexamine our own biases which, while different and based on our own cultural roots, may also color our interactions with other people of color. We need to reaffirm our commitment to work toward a more fair, equitable and just society in the country we have adopted.

Many of us grew up outside America. Our individual experiences have shaped our perceptions of our adopted home. However, this is a time to broaden our knowledge and to examine our own biases. With that in mind, some of our volunteers and board members have contributed to building a reading list below. These links are not as an endorsement of the authors, but differing perspectives that we hope will inform your own opinions. We encourage you to begin your own conversations with your family and friends about the current state of racism in our country and the path forward.

For our youth, I know that these conversations have already started. We will include their own activities and perspectives in our next issue of eSandesh.

ISW has been and is committed to serving every part of our community, regardless of language, religion or ethnicity. We will also continue to remain true to our founding principle as a non-political organization while we redouble our efforts to build bridges with the communities we live in, including the Black and LatinX communities.

I hope you will join us in this conversation as we continue to pray for good health, peace and a more equitable future for all of us.

Respectfully,

Ashish Cowlagi

President, India Society of Worcester 

A Suggested Reading List

• Dear Mom, Dad, Uncle, Auntie: Black Lives Matter to Us, Too from the Medium
• An informational letter to the South Asian Community by Kavya Balaji et al. answers “why should we care?’
• Indians' Debt to Black America an article by Neil Padukone describes how the civil rights movement has led to equitable immigration and immigrants rights.
• Sesame Street Town Hall on "Standing Up to Racism"
• Talking to Kids About George Floyd - Child Mind Institute
• How to Talk to your Children About Protests and Racism
• From Teaching Tolerance A PARENT'S GUIDE to Preventing and Responding to Prejudice
• From Harvard University: Black Lives Matter: Antiracism and Health Suggested Resources
• From Harvard’s Kennedy School of Public administration: A movement greater than this tragic moment
• On Netflix - the 13th, a documentary - may not be suitable for younger audiences.
• We Cannot Stay Silent About George Floyd by Hasan Minaj (may not be suitable for younger audiences)

[Thanks to many friends, board members and volunteers for their help in building this conversation and in helping find resources.]

It is a time in our community when everyone is finding ways to help each other, show their appreciation to those on the front lines or just finding ways to support the loved ones. We want to hear your stories, pictures, videos, music etc. Please use the link below to submit your content and our editorial board will select them for posting on ISW media sites.

Click here to submit content

ISW Launches multiple LGBTQ support networks

ISW LGBTQ+ Youth Support Network
The ISW LGBTQ+ Youth support network seeks to provide an in-person and online group of supportive peers, and is open to anyone between 13 and 24 years of age. A meeting place is yet to be decided. Each meeting will occur periodically, and will be hosted by a program facilitator. The format of the meetings will be an open forum for general support and discussion of topics raised by attendees, as well as some fun activities to encourage discussion and friendship. Additionally, program facilitators will be equipped with referrals to other appropriate service organizations. An online, informal WhatsApp group will be made available to be joined at the discretion of attendees. 

For  more information send email to lambda@iswonline.org

ISW Family of LGBTQ+ Support Network
 The ISW Family of LGBTQ+ Support Network is a support group for family members of LGBTQ+ people meeting periodically. The aim of the support group is to provide an open forum for the discussion of touching issues raised by the intersection of Indian culture and LGBTQ+ people. An adult facilitator will be present to lead discussion and provide referrals to pertinent resources. 

For more information, send email to friends_of_lambda@iswonline.org

Are we happy about online class ? Are we happy about not seeing kids in the classroom ? 

I will start with big YES . This YES is because everyone’s health is the first priority . Teacher is like a second parent to the kids . As parents can think only good about their kids . We teachers also give our heart and soul to show right direction to the kids how they can progress . And their progress is totally depend on they being healthy. So YES we should be happy though we can’t see them as staying home can keep them safe and healthy . 

Every Sunday we see their smiling face and sitting healthy  to attend the online class and believe me we can’t ask more than that . They are our future and we have to keep our future safe and protected . 

YES we are happy with online class as learning new stuff is always interesting and it excites me . We learned to use new app and how to easily execute it so we can run online classroom smoothly . 

We are teachers so we can’t loose our hope in any circumstances . Our mental  strength, our support and positive thinking will give a better future to this little hearts . I must say WE TEACHERS ROCK !!

Check out more pictures below.

https://www.facebook.com/iswonline/posts/2849518711803947

All free medical programs are closed to in-person visits untilfurther notice due to COVID epidemic. Telephone and video visits are available:

• Acute and chronic medical concerns
• Medication refills
•  Health screenings (in place of physicals)

Call or connect with a webcam during normal clinic hours

Monday through Thursday 6-8pm

You can reach us online via zoom on PC, Mac, iOS, or Android at the following address:

https://umassmed.zoom.us/my/wfcc2020

Telephone Line:

+1 646 876 9923 (US Toll)

Meeting ID: 648 474 7585 #

Connect by computer or call the phone number above. Enter the “meeting ID” number plus #. You will be connected to a member of our team, but you may be placed on hold.

As you know, the ISW Executive Board has been monitoring the updates on the impact of the Coronavirus pandemic. Today, we have decided to cancel or postpone most in-person ISW events till the end of April.

What is Changing ? Showcase India - hosted by the Indian Youth Group has been postponed. The IYG team is currently reassessing their plans - please stay tuned. Ramnavmi 2020 celebrations are cancelled for this year Humrahee meetings for March and April have been cancelled. We are exploring the possibility of having virtual meetings in the interim. ISW Cultural School classes in the India Center are cancelled through April. We are exploring the possibility of having virtual classes in the interim. Parents, please watch for an email from the ISW School Director soon. Yoga and Meditation classes will be cancelled through April. Free Health Stop has been cancelled through April to protect patients and the volunteer doctors. We do not have the ability to conduct COVID-19 tests. New India Center Construction: Currently, we don't believe there will be significant impact to the construction calendar, but we will be monitoring this situation in partnership with our General Contractor Information Resources, Where to get help : All our resources have pointed us to the CDC website as the primary and most reliable source of information. For the most timely from updates from ISW - please connect with one of our social media channels : Like us on Facebook or Join the ISW Volunteers Whatsapp group. If you know of families who need specific help - please reach out via one of the social media channels above or contact me directly. How Can I Help ? As we go through this pandemic, we will have to support and be there for each other. I am confident that the ISW family will be a source of strength for our entire extended local community. We have reached out to the town of Shrewsbury and the local regional health alliance to ask if there is any way we can help. If we hear of any specific actions - we will share them via our social media channels above. Please stay safe.