WASHINGTON, DECEMBER 15, 2004
IANS
A team of leading non-resident Indians (NRIs) will visit India in January
to get a first hand idea of NGOs working in the fields of primary education
and women's economic empowerment.
The trip will include site visits to organisations in which the American
India Foundation (AIF) has invested, meetings with senior Indian leaders
in business and government and the annual board of directors' offsite
meeting.
"This is an exciting opportunity," says Pradeep Kashyap,
executive director of AIF in New York. "It is vital that our US
leadership gets a direct sense of the work we are doing in India.
"What's more important, it will give an opportunity for AIF's
senior supporters in India and the US to meet and discuss how AIF can
most effectively work to accelerate social and economic change in India."
The delegation will include AIF co-chair Victor Menezes.
Since the AIF leadership's last visit to India with former president
Bill Clinton in 2001, the foundation has grown and expanded its activities
quite significantly, according to an AIF press release here.
AIF has raised over $18 million for its grants and programmes and has
partnered over 40 NGOs in India working in the areas of education and
livelihood.
AIF has also sent 95 Service Corps Fellows to work with Indian NGOs
and has established 104 digital equaliser centres throughout the country
that enhance education through computers and the Internet in under-resourced
schools.
The trip will include stops in Mumbai, Bagli, Hyderabad and New Delhi.
In Mumbai the trustees will meet with members of AIF's India Advisory
Board and visit schools that are part of AIF's Digital Equalizer programme.
They will then travel to Bagli, located in a tribal area in the Vindhya
mountains, where they will visit Samaj Pragati Sahayog, an AIF-funded
organisation that is doing pioneering work in watershed management and
women's empowerment.
In Hyderabad, the trustees will visit organisations providing micro
loans to women to enable them to start their own small businesses and
that are working to educate children of seasonal migrant labourers.
There will also be the board of directors meeting in Hyderabad along
with meetings with key corporate and government leaders.
In New Delhi they will be hosted by Montek Singh Ahluwalia, deputy
chairman of the Planning Commission and former member of the AIF advisory
council.