Atlanta,
Jan 2013: Vibha, the organization always on the forefront of innovation
has reaffirmed the notion that it is an organization with a difference
in making a difference! As the year came to a successful conclusion for
Vibha, exceeding its goals both in Atlanta and nationally, the
volunteers of Vibha thanked all its sponsors, donors and supporters at
an event on Dec 8th, at the Forsyth Conference Center.
"There
are two primary reasons for organizing this 'Thank-A-Thon' event. We
wanted to sincerely appreciate the sponsors and the donors for
believing and supporting us for so many years in making a difference in
the lives of underprivileged children. We also wanted to appraise them
of how their donations are put to good use, and the future direction of
Vibha", said Srinivas Vemulapalli, the National Executive for Volunteer
Relations and the coordinator of the event.
The evening
got off to a purposeful start with Kannan Udayarajan, the National
Executive for Fundraising Events, highlighting the fact in the past 20
years, Vibha has raised and disbursed more than 10 million dollars for
the cause, through more than 250 grassroots organizations reaching more
than 250,000 children. "In the past few years, Vibha is increasingly
taking on the role of being a Social Venture Capital Organization. We
identify scalable, and replicable models that solve systemic problems
and invest increasingly in spreading the models in other parts of
India" said Mr. Udayarajan. He further explained that Vibha
identified Sikshana - a model that intervenes in the public
schools system and significantly improved their performance through a
number of motivational parameters of the students and the teachers - as
a scalable model and replicated it in Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and
Maharashtra. Vibha also promoted it among like-minded organizations to
implement it and sought funding from other foundations, like UNICEF.
This helped Sikshana to scale from 15 schools when Vibha first started
funding in 2006 to 1115 schools in 2012, and Vibha itself is
funding 200 of these schools. Similarly, Vibha is replicating Door Step
school (DSS) in Pune, that takes the school to the door steps of
the children of migrant construction workers, in other parts of India.
A number of donors commented that Vibha's approach is different from
many organizations and appreciated its efficiency. The Chief Guest
for the evening, Prof. Jagdish Sheth, a renowned scholar and world
authority in the field of marketing, delivered the key-note speech on
the "US economy and its global competitiveness". In a speech that
is filled with historical perspective, anecdotes and future
predictions, he reaffirmed the resiliency of the US economy. In
an engaging session that followed, the best moment of the evening, came
in an exchange between Prof Sheth and Satya Jella, a 12-year-old
student. In response to his question on " what should the next
generation do to live the American Dream", Prof. Sheth impressed
the young man to work hard. He further highlighted the need to
nurture the human potential and said that the value add in the case of
polishing that potential is infinite (in comparison to the 20-fold
value-add for polishing a diamond). "You have an obligation to
the community. As you succeed, you must find other people and bring up
their potential" said Prof. Sheth. That, in one sentence, brought home
the perspective for the evening.
Vibha
is known in the community to promote the concept of volunteering, in
all age groups starting from middle school students to retired
professionals. "Similarly, Vibha also promotes the concept of 'giving'
in the Indian community", said Anoop Sinha, the Atlanta action center
coordinator as he welcomed Mr. Robert Smulian, Vice President
of The Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta. Smulian gave a
brief overview of how community foundations are structured and how
community Foundation is serving in the 23 counties in the area. A
brief cultural program that followed was coordinated by Madhavi
Korrapati, with representation from the best dance schools in Atlanta -
Geet Rung School of Dance & Music, Academy of Kuchipudi Dance
school, Smt. Indrani Kar and Planet U Performing Arts Bollywood Dance
school. The task of recognizing the sponsors and long term
supporters was ably done by Srinivas Vemulapalli, as he thanked several
people that supported the efforts of volunteers over a number of
years. Special recognition with a plaque was given to Srinivas
Nimmagadda of Vensai Technologies, Murali Gadde of Allied Informatics,
Aaron Bailey from Future Tech, and Gowtam Goli of Rapid IT.
As
the year 2012 came to a close, the Vibha volunteers were already busy
making plans for 2013, starting with Dream Play (TT, chess and Art) on
Feb 16. If you would like to volunteer, please write to
vibha-atlanta-volunteer-mgmt@googlegroups.com. If you would like to
make a tax-deductible donation to Vibha's year-end donation drive,
please visit www.vibha.org or call 678-523-8247.
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