Partner Updates

Integrating Able and Differently-abled Children In Rural Assam

Society for Health & Educational Development (SHED) in Sonapur, Assam has one solution to two problems:

Underprivileged children in this area have no access to a good education. These include tribal children, girls in the age-group 5-18, children with physical and mental disabilities, children who have faced domestic or other violence, and orphans
Differently-abled children are not integrated into mainstream society which causes them to suffer economically and otherwise later in life

Swabalambi Founder Wins International Creativity Award

Suchismita Majumdar, founder of Swabalambi, won the 2013 Prize for Women's Creativity in Rural Life from the Women's World Summit Foundation (WWSF) based in Geneva, Switzerland. Swabalambi, based in the outskirts of Guwahati, works for the betterment of differently-abled people all over Assam. Ms. Majumdar is among only ten people around the world selected for this international award for creativity. More information is in the WWSF award citation. Congratulations to Ms. Majumdar! AFNA is proud to support Swabalambi's mission to champion social change for differently-abled people.

Rickshaw Bank Receives Prestigious International Economic Development Award

Canton, Michigan, USA, Oct 8 2011

Rickshaw Bank, A project of the Centre for Rural Development (CRD), has been named as a laureate of the Flextronics Economic Development Award this year.

Pradip Sarmah & Rickshaw Bank: Pride of North East

By Saibal Das

Rickshaws are a significant means of transport and conveyance in India. There are currently estimated to be 8 million rickshaw pullers in India. 95 percent of these rickshaw pullers are victims of high daily rental fees making it nearly impossible to earn enough income to ever own a rickshaw in their lifetime. It was year 2003; a rickshaw puller was narrating his ordeal to Dr Pradip Kumar Sarmah. He was so distressed that he could not sleep at night; the realization however also galvanized Mr. Sharma into action and he initiated the project “Rickshaw Bank”. In the month of November 2010 Dr. Pradip Sarmah visited Boston at the Invitation of Massachusetts Institute of Technology. On first of November we organized a teleconference whereby Satyajit Nath , Pallav Saikia, Ankur Bora, Krishanu Kaushik, Amitav Chakravarthy, Saibal Das, Debojit Bora and Hitesh Kalita participated. The following article has been prepared based on this interaction.

Support A Child Project Update

November 2010

Update from Parijat Academy, Pamohi: Meghalim visited Parijat and the AFNA money for Support A Child was given by her to 17 students; three students were absent.