<Bangalore/Chennai>Need Volunteers for Christmas gifting programme of 1 lakh kids.

[B V N Anilkumar]

CC'ed the concerned person. Please contact incase you need details or contact the respective volunteer heads as in the mail below.

Anilkumar BVN

Hi Friends,

Please take a look through the forwarded mail. It is an appeal for volunteers and donations for Chrysallis – an NGO I work with. They are planning to organize gifting for 100,000 children, and parties for 20,000 children this year. The idea is to bring a little happiness and festivity to the lives of underprivileged and downtrodden children. The kids will be from poor backgrounds, mentally disabled, physically disabled, children of convicts, etc.

I’ll be volunteering this year, and I hope I see a lot of you joining me! 

I don’t think I need to tell anyone what a wonderful thing it is to spend a day with these unfortunate children. But I probably should highlight the difficulties involved in volunteering. Since managing a party involving hundreds of children can only be achieved with proper planning and practice, volunteers will need to commit to attend around 2 meetings to go through the orientation and planning stages. These meetings will be held in Cooke Town (Near MG Road). Apart from that, the party itself is going to be far from easy … I’ve seen the kind of chaos that can happen. Still, at the end of the day, everything somehow works out fine. J

Apart from volunteering, if any of you would like to organize contributions for the gifts, that will be nice too. Probably you could speak directly with Diana for that.

Anything you would like to ask me, please fire away. We need people badly, so here’s to a good response! Cheers. J

Regards

Hari

Please pass this on and help us reach our target of gifting 1,00,000 children this year 
at Christmas with Chrysallis 2009

Dear Friends,

Chrysallis Performance Arts Centre for the Challenged is celebrating its 10th Christmas gifting programme.

Christmas with Chrysallis 2009 - our annual gifting programme is here again. My thanks to all those who have contributed gifts and sponsorships over the years. 

This year our target is 1,00,000 children with physical, mental, social and economic challenges. And, we need your love, prayers and support. We will be organising parties for 20,000 children. 

Gifting Sponsorship details
Each gift should not exceed the value of Rs.25/-. 
You may sponsor the gift amount (details below) or you may purchase a gift of the maximum value of Rs.25/- , wrap it and label it with the age of the child. All gifts need to be gender neutral. Gifts may be dropped off at the address given below.

Party Sponsorship details
The sponsorship per child to the party is Rs.75/- . 

Current Status
20,000 gifts are confirmed. We seek your generosity on this occasion.


Sponsorship Amounts can be made out by Cheque in favour of Chrysallis Performance Arts

Mailing Address: Diana Tholoor, 19 Hutchins Road, St. Thomas Town, Bangalore 560 084
please mail in for details of bank transfer to diana....@gmail.com
Call: 65739341 / 9449816581 / 9886112230
Mail me for details of Volunteer Heads leading the Christmas events at Chennai, Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Pune

With best wishes and God bless you,
Diana Tholoor - Founder
Chrysallis Performance Arts Centre for the Challenged, Bangalore
I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; Ezekiel 36:26

[Suresh Adina]

Just curious: why specifically Christmas??

We are in India and not in US and more specifically in Hyderabad area. So an occasion more appropriate to the region should be selected.

Suresh A

[B V N Anilkumar]

Hi Suresh,

Let them do good in whatever name/festival it is. It really doesnt matter I believe. Even if it is some african festival. All it matters is whether the kids feel happy or not.

Anilkumar BVN

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[Suresh Adina]

Hi Anil,

I have no objection to anyone doing good in any way or manner, but do not give religious colors to it. If they really wanted to make Children happy, November 14th, which is deemed as Children's day in India, would have been ideal. This is non-religious. Even New Year's is acceptable. But specifying Christmas as the day for this celebration seems to indicate ulterior motives. And why do these children need a "party"??

I am sure these children and their parents would be happy that "Santa" gave them gifts on "Christmas" day and hence they need to thank their "Lord Jesus" for the "celebrations" on his "birthday".

One question: could the event not be held on a Sunday in December, without reference to Christmas?? Marg foundation (http://www.margfoundationindia.org/events.html) conducts a similar event for under privileged children every December - simply called "spreading smiles". This is just a children's day out and no religious name given to it. Because their intent is to just see smiles on a child's face.

You will understand my angst against such mails if you go through these two links:

http://chrysallispowerofone.blogspot.com/

http://www.chrysalis.org.uk/

Don't tell me these institutions exist just for human welfare. Their agenda is loud and clear!  And extra "l" in the name does not fool anyone about the association between the two. Religious propaganda under the garb of social service is the worst of its kind - even more so when targeting the poor and the unfortunate!

As I have repeatedly mentioned, members of this group mean well, but sometimes get exploited emotionally through such mails by/from dubious organizations. They will trust you as a member of the group and may not investigate the antecedents before deciding to donate to or support such groups. By no means, I consider myself as the gaurdian of the group, but will speak up when I feel something is not right!

So please think carefully before publishing information to the group. No offense is intended at you personally.

Cheers,
Suresh A

[B V N Anilkumar]

Suresh,

I know I would get the response from you on these exploitations in under religious garb.

So, what do you think can be done??

Two things are there here:
1) Stop these kind of organizations from doing what they claim
2) Stay calm and don't participate from what they are doing. Discouring in that way.
3) Dilute the whole motive of religious distribution by others joining hands in big number.

I have only one question, what do you think we should do??

 Service on chiristmas day is good as any religion is for human benefit though people misuse it always. We should encourage these people to distribute (any org under religious garb). My Idea is only that by joining under different banner, we  can tell world that it is not just christians who distribute gifts on these days but we people in general will celebrate it irrespective of religion. That's my idea.

If only christians distribute gifts/such orgs distribute, the chances of your fear becoming real are more.

So, My piece of thingy is, let us all join and be volunteers and tell everyone that this has nothing to do with religious groups. It is all about service groups. Hope you agree

I am not against any religion. Any other community people, please dont misunderstand and argue on this.

Anilkumar BVN

Suresh A

[B V N Anilkumar]

One thing to mention Mr Suresh.

I dont think we are arguing. I am always open to discussions at any level provided we could solve the problem also.

I am happy you brought the point so that we can now think of how we can dilute the whole issue of exploitations under religious garb by different organizations joining hands with these so called only religious org. or solve what ever way u think.

We are working for a higher good.. so Ego has no place as far as I am concerned. SO, please feel free to express your thoughts to all my mails.

Anilkumar BVN

[Giri Tiruvuri]

I totally agree with Suresh here and I agree with Anil that we are not arguing.

 

One thing we can do is to stay away from it (I think we must stay away from it) and also make it clear to Chrysallis as to why we are staying away from it (as if they care !!!). Or, tell Chrysallis that we can join if it is conducted on January 1 instead of Christmas or if they promise that there is absolutely no religious color to it (unlikely !!! )

 

I am not against Christ or Christmas. When I was in USA, we even used to have a Christmas tree. In fact, we celebrated Christmas once in India with our kids. However, as a group seriously interested in doing some good to India / humanity, we need to do whatever little we could to stop any acts of deep and nation-hurting ulterior motives.

 

All the above does not hold good if Chrysallis is openly saying that it is a religious event. Then,that becomes a different debate altogether and I would rather not get into it, in this 'very sane' forum.

[B V N Anilkumar]

I have mailed all your questions to the BOSF bangalore group member who forwarded the mail and who is a volunteer for this program.

Will let you know his response.

Anilkumar BVN

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[Suresh Adina]

I second Giri's thoughts. As the first step, let us stay away from it. As for convincing the organization - two possibilities.

1) If the organization is working with the intent of what we believe they are, we have little or no chance of changing anything.
2) If the Christmas day event is more of a coincidence, then we could discuss the possibility of doing it on a Sunday either before or after Christmas. If they are open to doing, we should ofcourse go and provide our support to the event. Let us be clear first that we are willing to do that - else let us not bother. I am quite open to joining them if it does transpire.

I am not sure, we would be able to talk to the organization directly and may not be well received either. So I am including Hari from the original post in the CC. Anil may share other details about our responses with him as needed.

Along the lines of Giri, I would like to clarify that I have nothing against people of any religion. Half my face book contacts are in fact Christians ( some are Indian as well including my sister-in-law). I have participated in all of their religious occasions attending Church for Mass on Easter, Christmas, New year and others. Attended their weddings and funerals and understood why they follow certain rituals. Basically their religion and belief is no different from any others. My only issue is with people or organizations with dubious intent of spreading religion amongst the under privileged under the guide of social service.

We are all clear that there are no Ego issues or arguments. Forum is for open discussion and everyone is sharing their thoughts.

Hope we can conclude the discussion here and figure out an action plan if applicable. Just hope that due diligence is done in future before such postings.

Cheers
Suresh A

[B V N Anilkumar]

Mailed Id changed...... Please note the change,

Anilkumar BVN

[B V N Anilkumar]

FYI

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Hari Narayana <harinar...@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Nov 16, 2009 at 9:04 PM
Subject: Re: <Bangalore/Chennai>Need Volunteers for Christmas gifting programme of 1 lakh kids.
To: B V N Anilkumar <anilku...@googlemail.com>


The parties will be held on the following dates..

November 28th and 29th, December 5th and 6th and December 12th and 13th.

So will be done before Christmas...

On Mon, Nov 16, 2009 at 5:53 PM, B V N Anilkumar <anilku...@googlemail.com> wrote:

FYI....

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--
M. Hari Narayana,
Asst. Systems Engineer,
TCS - Think Campus, B'lore.
Ph: 09845780801

[B V N Anilkumar]

Responses from Hari.....who is our BOSF Bangalore member and who is the one who has actually requested for volunteers. Leaving it to individuals whether to volunteer or not....


Mail1:
---------------------------------
Anil,

It is actually related to Christmas as there would be Santa and all...

But we need to understand some things...

1. Most of the Organizations who work for the disabled are side arms of missionaries and churches. So they would obviously plan to celebrate Christmas.

2. If this was a religious event for propaganda and all, there would not be any volunteers from other religions.. I know for the fact that 90% of the volunteers are from other religions..

3. Nowhere in the blogspot page, is mentioned anything about religion....

But sure.. I will make sure to put these forward to others and get responses...

Let me know if u have questions...
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Mail2:
-----------------
Anil,

With the experience i had in interacting with the organizing team, i confirm the following.

1. There would not be any religious propaganda on any of the events. There would be a small Christmas Party with Santa, Snowman and lots of fun.

2. All the events will happen before Christmas, the dates being 28th and 29th of November, 5th and 6th of December and 13th and 14th of December. 

3. Most of the Volunteers are Non-Christians.

4. There will not be any interaction with the management of the schools except of organizing the party. Most of the time, we will be with the kids. We would not be spending more than 3 hours at the school. So there is no chance of any teachings over there.

5. Finally, i can confirm that there is no connection at all between the organization in Bangalore and UK. Both are different groups. 

Please let this information pass on to the concerned. Also they can reach me directly @ 9845780801 for any questions.

Regards

Hari

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Regards

Hari