We decided to end this year with some very inspiring words from Swami Vivekananda. We wish you all the very best for 2009.

See you next year!

When I Asked God
- Swami Vivekananda

We're always pleased to hear from our donors. Here's a cheerful mail we received from a Payroll Giver, Mr R Agarwal, who works at Genpact in Jaipur. He says:

"Hi GiveIndia,

I am so thrilled and happy to see your email with my feedback report. I've been waiting for it.

It’s such a great experience to be a part of this organization and help needy people.

I really like your organization as it gives you a clear picture & transparency of how your donation has been utilized and also at the end of the day you feel on top of the world by helping at least one person.

I thank you from the deep core of my heart for allowing me to do some good for society."

About a month ago, we wrote about how we needed volunteers in 10 cities for feedback verification work.

We very pleased to have partnered with The Better India, a website that brings out the happy stories, the unsung heroes and heroines, the small good deeds happening across India and showcases them to the world. Readers get to learn about the incremental progress being done by the industrious people of this country, and developments happening on the social and economic front.

The Better India has featured GiveIndia on the right hand side, asking their readers to ACT NOW FOR THE BETTER INDIA.  Readers are then taken to the GiveIndia website where they can make a secure, online donation 

A few weeks ago, we introduced a few of the new NGOs that have recently gotten listed with us. Here is the second half of that list.

Community Action for Rural Development (CARD) was established in Pudukkottai District. Tamilnadu in 1982 works for the sustained development of poor village people through integrated development activities.

Native Medicare Charitable Trust was registered in September 1988 to provide sustainable holistic development to the underserved, especially women and children infected/ affected by HIV/AIDS in Coimbatore, Tamilnadu

Rural Organising for Social Improvement Foundation (ROSI Foundation) strives for
Human/gender/dalit/child rights, environmental and livelihoods promotion in sustainable manner. They also work with the aged and handicapped in Pudukkottai district, Tamilnadu.

JK MAASS Foundation envisages a society where people’s awareness on Disability Rehabilitation is widely ensured and persons with Disability surpass all barriers to attain their Development. They run a special school ‘Able Kids’ in Madurai for children affected by Cerebral Palsy.

New Life came into existence in the year 1993 with the help of philanthropists from various fields. New Life wants to build up a society based on equity & social justice where women & children are the leaders of social change of better tomorrow. They run programmes for children who are orphaned, semi-orphaned, deserted or child labourers.

Rural Welfare Organization was registered in 1989. A comprehensive transformation of the marginalised community in a sustainable manner, with activities covering a wide range of target group people from children to the aged, is envisaged as the core objective of the organisation. Vocational training, total sanitation campaign, family counselling, running old age homes, spreading sustainable agriculture practices, operating crèches, consumer education are some of their programmes.

At Vishwas Trust, Bangalore, the dream is to teach people skills they can use. Their programmes teach entrepreneurship among needy urban, rural and tribal women, youth and students leading to their holistic development.

GiveIndia is working with MoneyLIFE magazine on their Beyond Money column.

In this article, Geeta Seshu profiles MBA Foundation, which ensures a life of self-esteem and dignity for the disabled. MBA Foundation is compliant with GiveIndia’s rigorous due diligence and Credibility Alliance’s norms for NGOs.


The sound of music engulfed me as I walked into a ground-floor apartment at Powai. A group of young men and women was practising a dance -- surrounded by grinning and cheerful youth in wheelchairs. The dancers were disabled but who noticed? The josh -- the verve and sheer joy -- with which they tried to master their steps was riveting. Music and dance was the last thing I expected in a centre for the disabled, conditioned as I was by other, more clinical institutions. But, says Sujata Srivastava, music and dance and, indeed, an attitude of work and play, are integral to the spirit of the MBA Foundation. “You will find the atmosphere at our centres very lively. We believe in integrating the disabled with the able as a seamless process,” she said.

Started by Meenakshi and CR Balasubramanian in 2001, the MBA (Mutually Beneficial Activity) Foundation believes in providing a ‘life with self-esteem and dignity for the disabled’. It helps them to become productive members of the society and trains them to acquire skills to support themselves. Apart from counselling and occup-ational therapy, they are given vocational training, taught to use computers for data-entry or learn to operate photocopiers, scanners and lamination machines or are trained as telephone operators. After the training, efforts are made to find them jobs and give support to integrate them into their work scenario.

Attempts are made to assess and strengthen the abilities of the challenged. “In one instance, a girl came to us after losing both her legs in an accident. We found she had a talent for cooking and she began making puranpolis and rotis. Now, she’s been with us for the past five years. Last year, she underwent a special education course and appeared for the NIOS (National Institute of Open Schooling) and cleared three subjects,” Sujata informed. Various products like stationery, candles and agarbathis, aprons, bags, home-made snacks and detergents are made and sold under the brand of GODS, an acronym for Groups of Disabled.

Both Meenakshi and Sujata had worked earlier with the Spastics Society of India (SSI) having joined it as parents of disabled children. SSI has a cut-off age of 17 which leaves disabled adults at a loose end and barely ready to join the mainstream. Their own learning as parents led them to train in special education and counselling. Sujata says, "I always look into a parent’s eyes from my eyes." 

The terrible events of last week have saddened and shocked Mumbai, India and the entire world. Innocent lives have been shattered; who will pick up the pieces?

The Southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu has been affected severely by unseasonal floods. So far two GiveIndia listed NGOs have set up iGive pages to raise funds to help people who have lost their homes and their possesions.

Read the following report about the floods fron the news agency Reuters.

Thirty-two dead as tropical storm lashes south India
Wed Nov 26, 2008 By S. Murari

CHENNAI, India, Nov 26 (Reuters) - At least 32 people have died in floods caused by a tropical storm in southern India and thousands more have been evacuated to higher ground, officials said on Wednesday.

Heavy rains brought down mud houses, uprooted trees and damaged paddy crops in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, officials and witnesses said.

Hundreds of people from low-lying areas in the city of Chennai, the state capital and the biggest city in the region, were moved to higher grounds.

Authorities said the storm was expected to cross the Tamil Nadu coast late on Wednesday near Nagapattinam town, where more than 6,000 people died in the December 2004 tsunami.

At least 24,000 people living near the sea were evacuated and being given food and clothes in camps, Chandrasekaran, a senior government official told Reuters from Nagapattinam, 300 km (190 miles) south of Chennai.

More people were expected to be evacuated as the river Cauvery burst a dam further south and swamped farmlands and villages.

Authorities said they had reports of 32 deaths from remote districts in the state over the past week, mostly caused by electrocution as overhead electric wires snapped after the storm, Nisha, swept across the state.

The unseasonal rains also flooded more than 80,000 ha (around 200,000 acres) of cropland in the southern state, officials said.

Authorities shut schools state-wide on Wednesday, and used pumps to drain water from the streets of Chennai.

Fishermen were warned against taking their boats to sea after more than 100 vessels were damaged and an Indian fishing trawler sank in Sri Lankan waters.

There are so many special days in December and so many ways to make a difference. Which of these days has special meaning for you?

December 1 - World AIDS Day
Provide nutritious and wholesome food for a month to a person living with HIV/AIDS