AFNA wishes everyone a Happy Rongali Bihu season. For everyone who donated earlier in our 2012 calendar campaign, we hope that the scenes and holiday listings of Assam in the calendar are helping a little to remind you of our beautiful state during this special season.

AFNA continues to make good progress on our existing initiatives outlined in the previous newsletter. We have also taken on some new initiatives since then, which we describe below.
Supporting "Where the Brahmaputra meets the Mississipi" (WBMM):  This was a fundraising event held in Richfield, Minnesota on April 7th 2012, organized by three AFNA volunteers Mili Dutta, Monika Kataky, and Ankita Deka, with the help of other volunteers and members of various communities. The program was a presentation of Indian classical and modern dance with North American music and dance. It was symbolizing the confluence of cultures of the mystical east and the vibrant west. The objective was to raise $10,000 through ticket sales, silent auctions, and donations for the benefit of two NGOs in Assam, namely RVGN (Rashtriya Gramin Vikas Nidhi) and SPADE (Society for Promotion of Appropriate Development Efforts). The details of this event are available at http://www.wbmm-mn.com/. The coordinator for this partnership with the WBMM team was AFNA volunteer, Krishanu Kaushik.

Solar Light: Power to the People: In our own lives, we take modern lighting for granted for basics like children's education (study at night), healthcare, and safety. "Solar Light: Power to the People" is a new AFNA project to bring a little bit of reliable lighting to poor people in a remote region in Assam, namely the the Garbhanga forest near Pamohi outside Guwahati. Garbhanga does not have electricity from the grid and is unlikely to do so in the near future. To make a dent on this problem, AFNA submitted this project proposal in March 2012 to Global Giving (www.globalgiving.org), a highly respected organization which attracts donors globally for humanitarian projects across the world. After a detailed due diligence process, Global Giving accepted the proposal and set a goal to raise $4,000 from 50 unique donors by April 30th to make this project permanent on their site. Due to the hard work of many AFNA volunteers and generous contributions from many donors within and outside the Assamese community, this milestone was achieved before the deadline! As a permanent entry on Global Giving,  "Solar Light: Power to the People" will now have sustained attention from prospective donors all over the world for many years and help us provide this much needed lighting to the people of Garbhanga. The project was led by AFNA volunteers, Ankur Bora and Pinky Pradhan. 

Mid west tornado relief: In March this year, a tornado wreaked havoc in the mid-western states of the USA. As a token of support to the victims, AFNA did a fund drive and is donating $1000 to the American Red Cross for relief work. The coordinator for this fund drive was AFNA volunteer, Debojit Bora.