Bollywood moves for charity

Community youth get together to make a difference to the lives of underprivileged children in Indian

By RITAM MITRA

Hundreds of young Indians attended a night of song, dance and glamour for charity last month, helping raise $10,000 to start and run one-teacher schools in rural and tribal regions of India. Organised by Ekal Youth Australia, the youth wing of Ekal Vidyalaya Foundation Australia, the night was aimed at university students and directly raised enough funds to start up and run six schools in India for a span of three years, providing education to 180 children.

Ekal Vidyalaya Foundation Australia is focused on raising awareness for underprivileged Indian children who cannot afford education due to various reasons, either through financial difficulties, geographical remoteness, or the burden of other responsibilities. Ekal Youth Australia also promotes the same cause, but focuses on involving younger Indians in social and cultural events across Sydney.

The success of the night was the fruit of six months of hard work on its preparation. Although the group met their goals of having 500 attendees and raising $10,000, Sunali Bhandula, President of Ekal Youth Australia, told Indian Link the biggest challenge for the group was simply marketing the event.

“Once everything was organised it was just a matter of spending the last four weeks with crazy running from one place to the other to market the event - lots of Facebook updates, visiting other big events, posters in Indian stores and restaurants, handing out flyers at the stations and constantly being at other universities to share information amongst cultural societies”.

The night was a tale of two halves.

In the first half, the audience were entertained by a host of talented groups and individuals. A colourful fashion show by Shweta Kohli kicked off the proceedings, followed by several exciting and engaging dance performances, including the Mayur Indian Dance Academy, Shiamak Sydney, Pehchaan Mutiyaar Di, Ruchi Sanghi Dance Company, Elementary Dance and Bollywood Glamour.

The audience were given a moving presentation on Ekal Youth and the great work it does for disadvantaged children, and Akshay Raj presented the group with a donation on behalf of the Australian Labor Party. After a short dinner break, the second half of the night began with a great performance by Rooh Punjab Dee on the dance floor itself, after which DJ Dimple and his Desi Crew Australia (including two highly popular dholis) introduced the open dance floor to the large crowd. Ajay Balakrishnan, 21, admitted this was the part that everyone was looking forward to. “I loved the fact that the performances were of a high quality, but at the same time the organisers knew it was a young audience and they wouldn’t be able to sit still for the whole night, most of them just wanted to get up and dance”.

And dance they did, the young crowd spent the rest of the night busting moves on the dance floor to a mix of Bollywood, Punjabi, English and dhol tracks. The use of social media, so important in the organisation of the night, was again felt as a special track of requests was played, given to DJ Dimple through Facebook.

The bigger picture was never lost on the dance floor, however. The event, mainly marketed through Facebook and University societies, highlighted the ability of today’s younger generation to make a positive impact on society. Social media has been a crucial tool in activism across the world for some time now, and this was just one example of how quickly individuals can combine for the greater good.

Attendee Karn Agrawal, 21,

The event directly raised enough funds to start up and run six schools, providing education for 180 children said it was a small stepping stone towards a better future. “It’s really important that people recognise these issues at our age - and hopefully the generation after ours is even more equipped to tackle even bigger and more critical issues”.

“Education is essentially a human right which every child deserves, and I believe education is the key to success, if you can educate one child, that child can then go educate another ten,” said marketing coordinator Sheffy Goyal. “It’s the satisfaction gained from giving a child the gift of education they deserve that makes this cause so special”.

Attendee Vedant Tijoriwala summed up the night, “It was a wonderful night of socialising and dancing, made ever better by the fact our money was going to help educate kids in India!”