Sri Vidya Shakthi was a dance recital by Mrs Shobitha Raghu- founder and teacher of NatyaKriya in celebration of their 10th year anniversary. She graciously donated all proceeds to Ekam Pittsburgh.The event was able to support the growth and promotion of Indian classical dance in the Pittsburgh community while also supporting Ekam USA. We raised $2500 through this event which was used towards the construction of toilets at the Government high school in Salukkai village – Villupuram district.

EYA’s from the EKAM Pittsburgh chapter- Adhi and Divya Thirumala along with their parents , visited Salukkai village on completion of the construction of toilets. Thanks to kind donors and collections from the Sri Vidya Shakthi, we coordinated the construction of 4 toilets .This included 2 separate toilets for boys and girls at the high school. We also had a session coordinated by the local ekam representatives and spoke to the children about personal hygiene and the importance of preventive health.

EKAM PITTSBURGH Youth Ambassadors organized a donation drive to a women’s shelter. The Bethlehem Haven Homeless shelter provides shelter, housing and services to vulnerable women in Allegheny County, Pittsburgh. This shelter is better equipped to benefit homeless women by providing long-term solutions that combine “health and housing” to help end the cycle of homelessness. During this COVID Pandemic the number of unemployment and homelessness has spiked up. In efforts to help people during these difficult times the Ekam Youth Ambassadors joined together with the lead of Smrithi Shyam and Sreethi Ramineni to raise funds to help the homeless people. The team conducted a zoom meeting to try to bring in all the youth members and decided to keep letters and fliers in the mail boxes of their neighborhood to collect funds. They received an enormous amount of support and were able to make 40 care kits and collected three boxes of activity books and snack boxes. The project was published in a Caring crowd campaign and they were able to raise a total of $2725 to donate to the shelter. This money will help Bethlehem Haven to cover the meal costs and Home programs so that women who have lost part-time work can continue to pay rent and keep their families housed.

Adhitya Thirupala, Ekam Pittsburgh EYA, raised funds by organizing a mini-golf tournament and supported several activities during the second COVID wave in India in 2021. These included grocery support, hygiene kits, masks/ gloves etc. to primary health centers, education and livelihood support to underprivileged people.

Ekam youth members Sreethi, Siddarth and Srinath along with their family had the opportunity to visit Salukkai village in Tamil Nadu. It was a well coordinated visit with local Ekam volunteers. We visited the Anganwadi center,the local health center, Elementary and high schools. We met with the principal of the high school and received a warm welcome with kids performing

dances for us. Our family was able to contribute Rs. 30,000 for purchase of a fax machine and printer. We also visited the primary health center in Valzhur ,India. We met with local doctors and local village elders. We deeply thank local Ekam volunteers in India who made our visit impactful for our family. Our family was able to assess first hand the needs of the village. This further motivated us to fulfill the village needs and support the ground work being done by Ekam.

PIC 5k is a Pittsburgh Indian community 5K run organized every September, raising funds to donate to local nonprofit organizations . It is a well attended event by local Indian community members. EKAM Pittsburgh during the years of 2018 and 2019 participated in the events by setting up a booth to increase awareness about Ekam. We also had the opportunity to talk about Ekam goals and our activities on a yearly basis. These kinds of community events provide opportunities for Ekam to reach out to more people

Smrithi Shyam, a rising 10th grader in Pittsburgh started a caring crowd project to provide unprivileged adolescent girls in India menstrual hygiene. Only 12% of the women in India use proper sanitary napkins, leaving 330 million women left to use dirty rags, ashes, leaves, and dirt. These unsanitary substitutes lead to health defects and eventually the dropping out of school. In efforts to increase supply to sanitary napkins and hygienic education Smrithi collected $4000. 50% of the proceeds will go to giving 250 girls a year’s supply of sanitary napkins in Telangana, India through the organization Global Pragathi and the other 50% will go towards educating 250 adolescent girls in Villupuram, Tamil Nadu, India about menstrual hygiene.

A GoFundMe fundraiser was created to raise funds for the India’s poor who have been hit hard by COVID-19 lockdown. Through generous donations from local community members $2397 was raised. Ekam USA was able to send the amount to India to help the needy. We are very thankful for the local community members who donated to this great cause.

A Caring crowd campaign which is an online fundraising platform from Johnson and Johnson was created to improve sanitation in Salukkai village, Tamil Nadu, India. Our goal was to raise $4000 to build four toilets for the high school in Salukkai Village which would improve sanitation to 300 children. Johnson and Johnson matches the donation .Project was completely funded in January 2019 and with the help of local volunteers toilets were built for use by high school students.

The Pittsburgh EKAM chapter organized a Plastic Awareness event on 7/13/2019 at a local Indian convenience store in Wexford, PA. The main objective of the program was to decrease the use of single use plastic bags. Ekam youth ambassadors quizzed the customers about the decomposition timeline of plastic compared to other commonly used household products.

Poster boards explaining the harmful effects plastic on marine life and ways to prevent it were displayed . Reusable jute shopping bags were distributed to the customers that day .

EYA encouraged them to use the reusable bags and help save the environment by reducing single use plastic bags. This activity helped create awareness among people to be a part of the solution to the problem of plastic pollution. At this venue we had the opportunity to share EKAM Pittsburgh chapter’s volunteer activities both locally as well as in its adopted village Salukai in Tamil Nadu, India.