Valentine’s Day fundraising gala for children

Special Feature

FREMONT, CA: Pari looks out the window of her small one room hut. She sees a boy and a girl her age, dressed in school uniforms, backpack on their shoulders, talking and laughing as they make their way across the street. They are going to school. She wonders if she will ever join them. She hears her mother call her. It’s time for her to go work in the nearby farm. She has to work or there will not be enough to eat that day. Pari is 10 years old.

Unfortunately there are countless children like Pari, boys and girls alike who long for good education, three square meals a day and to feel safe and happy.

Let’s look at some statistics of India, says a statement from Chirag Foundation: 1 in 4 School Age Children are not in school (34 Million); 36% of children are malnourished; 24 million between 5 and 14 do child manual labor; 1 in 3 child brides come from India.

While there are Government programs that work to eliminate these problems, they are not enough. Children are still ploughing fields, working in matchstick factories, kidnapped or sold for trafficking, young girls are raped and abused, girls are forced into marriages and bearing children when they are still children themselves and forever lost in the intergenerational cycle of poverty.

They need champions like us to become their voice and we need to take action to not leave any child behind. We are an ecosystem of five partners Chirag, Save the Child, Children’s Vitamin Project,

Vandemataram, BBBS. We work together to fight children’s problems in a holistic approach using the UN’s three sustainable development goals with a key focus on children – Education, Equality and Health.

Join us for our Valentine’s Day Fundraising Gala on February 9 with music, dance, art, cocktails and dinner at Indian Community Center, 525 Los Coches St. Milpitas, California from 5.30PM to 9.30PM.

Complimentary Child Care is available at the banquet.

At the event, world renowned artist, A. V. Ilango will paint Ms. Shreya Iyer a gifted dancer while she performs. Paintings will be auctioned at the event. Keynotes are provided by Swati Mylavarapu,Cofounder of Incite.org . Other important guests at the event include: Matt Rogers , Cofounder Nest

and Incite.org; Sudhakar Ramakrishna , CEO, Pulse Secure ; Anant Jhingran , Apigee CTO at Google ;Murali Krishnamurthy , Executive Chairman, SEF ; Ravi Devesetti , NA, CIS, CTO of Experian.

Chirag, Save the Child, Children’s Vitamin Project, Vandemataram Foundation, BBBS are registered 501[(c)(3)] non-profit organizations that strive to provide education, basic necessities and nutrition to underprivileged children in India, Nepal, Pakistan, Uganda and low income families in the USA.