Ekal Southwest Region raises over $700,000 during the August 1 “Sur Sangeet”, Musical Concert
Ekal Vidyalaya is the largest grass-root non-government, nonprofit education charity organization with 102,000 schools and educating 2.5 million children daily in remote and tribal villages in India and Nepal.
During these challenging times with Covid 19 all around the globe, Ekal Vidyalaya was one of the first to recognize the vulnerability of rural areas in India. Ekal with its presence in over 102,000 villages, reached out to 300,000 villages immediately to embark on an ambitious initiative. It focused on self-monitoring, self-reliance and cooperative exchanges among villagers to prevent spread of the corona virus.
During February-March of this year, specially trained Ekal’s own eleven artists who came to USA from the villages of India performed very successful 10 shows. Although the plan was to conduct 60 shows across the US, the remaining shows were cancelled due to the Covid situation. The artists had to return to their homes in India on March 15th.
As the pandemic brought the world to a grinding halt, it posed a challenge to Ekal to raise funds in the US. In absence of usual stage performances in auditoriums nationwide, Ekal was quick to adapt to the new reality and decided to conduct virtual concerts. Since then, Ekal launched a series of virtual concerts across North America.
On Saturday, August 1st, Ekal Southwest Region hosted a musical concert “Sur Sangeet – Aaj Kal Ke Geet”, as an annual fund-raising event for Houston, Dallas, Austin, Kansas City, Shreveport and Corpus Christi. The music performance was by a well-renowned HemantKumar Musical Group. The group has conducted over 4,000 shows in the last 40 years. The Group comprised renowned singers Alok Kadtare, Gauri Kavi, Priyanka Mitra, Abhijeet Mishra and saxophone player & three musicians. They performed live from a studio in Mumbai. Almost 1,500 viewers watched the concert. Ekal raised more than $700,000.
Ekal is also involved in integrated and holistic development of the remotest and tribal villages of India and Nepal. For this, Ekal provides:
(1) Health and hygiene through its telemedicine program and focuses on anemia and malnutrition needs of village patients;
(2) Skill training in its tailoring centers and computer labs in Gramothan Resource Centers and Integrated Village Development centers;
(3) Organic farming and poshan vatikas which teaches the farmers to improve their growth; and
(4) Digital literacy with tablets for each school and Ekal on wheels EOW buses that travels to several villages teaching computer skills.
Please visit www.ekal.org for more information, donation and volunteering.
