AIF New York Young Professionals Chapter Update

Your Voice For The Cause, Hudson Terrace | Nov. 10 | 7PM
We thank you for attending the AIF NYYPC kick-off event for 2009–10 - Your Voice for the Cause. The event not only educated but also complimented over 90 supporters with drinks and event passes. In partnership with the Mahindra Indo-American Arts Council (MIAAC), we offered our guests free “invitation only” passes to the Director’s Screening of Gulaal and the opportunity to meet with Gulaal’s director, Anurag Kashyap. Photos from the event have been posted to our Facebook Page.



2009 - 2010 Initiative - SAATH

The votes have been counted and the people have spoken: SAATH has been chosen as our initiative for FY2009-10! SAATH (saath.org) works in the urban slums of Ahmedabad and administers an Integrated Settlements Development Program which views development holistically and aims at enhancing local capacities by empowering local residents. We are also proud to announce that on November 9, Rajendra Joshi, Director of SAATH, received the Social Entrepreneur of the Year award from the World Economic Forum. We look forward to working with and supporting SAATH over the coming months.

William J. Clinton Service Fellow Event - Sundaram Tagore Gallery | Wednesday, Dec. 9 | 6:30pm

AIF NYYPC’s next event will be held at Sundaram Tagore Gallery on December 9 at 6:30 PM. Spend an evening learning about one of AIF's Signature Programs, the Clinton Fellowship, which focuses on an exchange of technical skills and intellectual resources, aiming to build the capacity of Indian NGOs while developing American leaders with a deep understanding of and continued commitment to India. A panel of Clinton Fellows will be discussing their experiences working on-the-ground with NGOs in India and answering questions from the audience. Tickets will be available for purchase at newyork.aifyp.com/event.

AIF NYYPC Open Board Positions

AIF NYYPC is currently inviting applications for its board. Please email a statement of interest and resume to newyork@aif.org if you are interested in getting involved.

The Ninth Annual MIAAC Film Festival – New York City | November 11-15

We are proud to partner with the Mahindra Indo-American Arts Council (MIAAC) and bring to you - The Ninth Annual MIAAC Film Festival. This splendid festival will be filled with red carpet premieres, panels on Indian Cinema, a focus on Kashmir and many more exciting events!
From the festival that brought you “Slumdog Millionaire“, “Water“, “The Namesake,” and other award-winning films, this year’s festival promises to be more exciting with 44 premieres of the best of Indian cinema including features, shorts and documentaries such as Aasif Mandvi’s “Today’s Special”, Santosh Sivan’s "Tahaan“, and Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury's "The Endless Wait”. MIAAC ticket stubs also provide free admission to after parties with drink specials. You can purchase your tickets at http://miaacfilmfest.org. MIAAC09 is pleased to offer members of AIF YP discounted tickets to the Sunday 9PM screening of Gulaal (mention the MIAAC discount at the box office).

The Manhattan Project, Baruch Mason Hall Theater | Saturday, Nov. 14 | 6:30PM

NYU Pandemonium and NASHA in partnership with the American India Foundation presents, The Manhattan Project, a fusion dance competition. All proceeds will be donated to AIF, LAMP Program and the Clinton Initiative. Please visit www.themanhattanproject.kk5.org for more details.

Get Involved!

If you would like more information on getting involved or helping to sponsor the NYYPC or AIF in general, please email us at newyork@aif.org. If you have not already done so, please join our Facebook fan page (www.facebook.com/newyork.aifyp) to receive the latest information on upcoming events and volunteer opportunities.

A Toast to Good Health - AIF NYYPC Annual Benefit 2009

The AIF New York Young Professionals Chapter dedicated its second year of fundraising efforts to help the Apna Clinic, a public health initiative of AIF. As part of its campaign, the Chapter held its annual benefit dinner, A Toast to Good Health, on Saturday April 11.

The Apna Clinic, to be built in the Mustafabad area near Delhi, will serve around 60,000 people with basic healthcare and education. This effort will provide much needed care to the poor population in the area, particularly the often overlooked maternal and child care segment.

A sold-out crowd of 200 people joined AIF at the trendy restaurant, At Vermillion, on Manhattan's east side, enjoying cocktails and mingling before sitting down for dinner and the evening's program. After brief introductions by Chapter Coordinators Nitin Sacheti and Sanjay Sharma, AIF's CEO Sanjay Sinho took the floor to discuss the mission of AIF and the Young Professionals' role in it.

The highlight of the program was an address by Mira Kamdar, acclaimed author and Senior Fellow at the World Policy Institute focusing on socioeconomic development in India and the role Indian Americans played in furthering it. Grateful that the young professionals in attendance were so actively supporting AIF, and adamant that they continue to do so, she explained how AIF could provide the bridge between those participants and Diaspora giving.

The audience then participated in a live auction of two roundtrip, upper-class tickets from New York to London on Virgin Atlantic, donated by Spotnana, a boutique executive travel firm. The audience's enthusiasm was incredible and grew along with the bids. In the end, these tickets garnered over $5,000 for the Apna Clinic! Another lively auction for two tickets from London to India on Kingfisher Airlines followed that raised $1,700 for our cause.

Guests also had a chance to bid on silent auction items. Popular items, including lunches with AIF Trustees, were actively bid upon until the close of the evening at midnight.

All told, A Toast to Good Health raised over $14,000 for the Apna Clinic!

Changing relationship between the Indian diaspora and India

Good article (in the economist) on the changing relationship between the Indian diaspora and India. The article doesnt' specifically address efforts by the diaspora to "give back" through NGOs such as AIF, but it provides a good overview of India's efforts to leverage its 25 million strong NRI population.

Slumdog Millionaire's Success

The American India Foundation NY Young Professionals Chapter is excited to see the success that Slumdog Millionaire has experienced with its win of 8 Oscar awards. Its heartwarming story and the great recognition it has received is a milestone for all involved. We wanted to share one of the many interviews with members of the Slumdog cast particularly the child actors and actresses from the film. (EONLINE Interview)

We hope that the tremendous success of Slumdog Millionaire also sheds light on the many that live in the slums of India. Over the past few years, the AIF NY Young Professionals Chapter has focused on the goal of accelerating social and economic change in India. Currently, we are focused on supporting The Apna Clinic, an Urban Health Center for sustained improvement in reproductive, maternal and child health in the slums of Mustafabad in Delhi. This initiative is particularly compelling as one in every five childbirth-related deaths in the world occurs in India and as India's population rapidly grows, the availability of services for the already underserved urban poor will be subject to increasing pressures. To learn more about this initiative please go to http://newyork.aifyp.com/initiative.

The AIF NY Young Professionals Chapter will also be hosting our Annual Benefit to support the Apna Clinic this spring. Please visit our website for more details.

Welcome

We've designed this blog as an interactive means for New York area young professionals to share their thoughts and questions with the AIF Young Professionals Chapter as well as the larger American India Foundation. We hope you will comment on our initiatives and we will seek to answer all questions posted to the blog regularly. We appreciate your support.

Philanthropy in the Credit Crunch

Below is an interesting article in the Economist that discusses the decline in charitable giving in the US recently because of the financial crisis. Interestingly enough, I think this relates to the extreme excesses we've seen over the last twenty years due to the advent of leverage. Just as the US economy is over-retailed and over-banked, we're also over-charitied. There are so many charities that currently exist without an efficient business model focused on fundraising for the best causes with the highest returns. As Mr. Das mentioned at our event, All in for a Healthy Cause, we will certainly see a philanthropic Darwinism occur over the next several years. This will happen as asset bubbles in the US deflate and consumers begin to save more. We'll see high quality charities like AIF and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation survive but smaller and less efficient organizations will shut down as consumers become more focused on where their charitable dollars go. The real question is, is this a good or bad thing in the long run. I remember while at the Kentucky Derby seeing donation solicitations for a charity for retired thoroughbreds! Really necessary? Thoughts??

http://www.economist.com/business/displayStory.cfm?story_id=12881455