The Committee on Nomination of India Society of Worcester is pleased to announce the upcoming General Body meeting and Elections to be held on Sunday, January 31, 2021* at 2 PM at India Center (152 Main Street, Shrewsbury, MA) The committee solicits nomination for all the following 15 positions of the Executive Board for a term of 2 years starting January 2021.  President Vice President General Secretary Assistant General Secretary Treasurer Assistant Treasurer Chair of Cultural Committee Chair of Religious Committee Chair of Cultural School Committee Chair of India Center Committee Five Members-at-large  In addition, the committee solicits names for the nomination for all the 3 Positions of Governance Committee for a term of 2 years starting January 2021. Please use the online form to submit your nominations - Nominate Here Included below are eligibility requirements that must be met for all nominations A person nominated for a post in the Executive Board shall be a dues paying member of the Society for at least one full year prior to the election date. In addition, a person nominated for the position of the President and Vice-President shall meet the following requirements: For President: Two years experience as a member of the Executive Board or past Committee or as member of the past Board of Trustees or as a chairperson of a standing committee.  For Vice President: Two years experience as an active participant of any of the committees or Subcommittees of the Society. For Committee of Governance: Thorough knowledge of the Constitution and Bylaws of the ISW and should be familiar with the parliamentary rules of conducting meetings understanding of Bylaws of nonprofit organizations You can nominate yourself or any eligible members for the open positions. To nominate a person to one of the positions, please use the online form by clicking here on or before November 22nd, 2020.   Once the nominations are received, the nomination committee will create a slate of prospective candidates to be appointed for all the posts. This slate will be available to the general public on or before January 13th 2021. Please look for the slate in your email and on our website www.ISWOnline.org. Please email the nomination committee nominationcommittee@iswonline.org), if you any queries about the slate or the nomination process. (you can also reach Renuka Garg @ 508 523 6664). Nominating Committee members include - (Renuka Garg, Barin Bando, Shaikh Hoque, Carolyn Passey, Sonal Koppikar) * Date is subject to change based on the COVID-related restrictions and construction schedule at India Center.

SW Participated with town officials at city of Worcester, Town of Shrewsbury & Town of Grafton along with other partner organizations(IAGB, BVIS) to hoist Indian National flag to celebrate India's 74 years of independence. The volunteers of ISW were on site along with city officials to hoist the flags and stream the event live of facebook. Check out the videos link here. Worcester, Shrewsbury

Thirty One years that’s how long we’ve been hosting India day at India Society of Worcester or ISW. What started back in 1989 in the halls of Worcester auditorium, no one could have imagined that one day it would be streaming live from someone’s home office, being watched by hundreds of people on their devices, enjoying amazing dancers perform in their living rooms, backyards, parks or sometime on the roads.

The year 2020 has shown us a new normal, in which ISW has broken all barriers to bring to the community not 1 or 2 but multiple live online events from Antakshri to art night to yoga and now a 3 day, 5 session virtual India Day event .

So once again from bottom of my heart thank you to all my fellow ISWers who made this event possible & to all the dancers, singers and teachers, to our community and above all to all of you the audience who boost our spirits by liking, sharing and commenting on our posts and videos and encouraging us to make ISW a home away from home for many of us. So with that I invite you to Please watch all the videos we are sharing in this special edition and share, comment and like us on FB. Check out our special India Day page.

Happy Independence Day Jai Hind.

Puneet Kohli, VP ISW, Chair India Day

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