On Saturday October 24th we held our most successful fund-raising dinner to date at the Hart Crown Banquet Hall catered by Dana Mandi. We had 240 guests and the buzz in the hall was palpable. Thank you to all those who attended. We were treated to great entertainment with Nepali and Punjabi dancers, turban wrapping, henna painting, Raghu’s music and a silent auction. Hilary showed her slides of Samuha’s work in India showing how dollars raised in Prince George by SODA have helped children in India overcome their disability, attend school and go on to have productive lives in their community. The food of course was wonderful and people enjoyed the warm camaraderie of the evening. We are once more able to send $20,000. to SAMUHA to help them run their programs for 2016, thanks to the generosity of our supporters.
Soda Executive and Phil Sheppard
One of our Board members, Andrea Mendoza, is currently in India volunteering with SAMUHA for 6 months. She is a paediatric physiotherapist and is helping to further develop the skills of the Samuha staff as well as update their training manuals. She is there until April and Lesley and Hilary plan on returning to SAMUHA in November 2016 for a month. The disability program continues to expand and develop as it serves the most vulnerable populations in the villages where Samuha works. We continue to work mostly with children but have also developed a spinal cord injury unit and program. The plans are to expand the services into Raichur, a town about the size of Prince George, which currently has no paediatric therapy services but has a great need.
Types Of Activities For Students
Several Canadian students who have been to SAMUHA with Hilary continue to support SAMUHA’s work through running fundraising events for SODA. A village in England is also supporting this work and with Andrea and Lesley living in Vancouver, our web keeps expanding. Phil Sheppard, a physiotherapist from Smithers, took 4 UBC students to Samuha in January 2015 for 6 weeks and then went on to a disability program in Nepal. Shortly after leaving there, the massive earthquake hit so he immediately returned to Kathmandu and applied his skills to help in the trauma unit there. He is still in Nepal continuing this humanitarian work. Phil presented at our SODA dinner last year.
Feedback From Students
We are very thankful to all our donors who support the work of Samuha. Without you, we couldn’t do this work but without help these vulnerable families would not be able to feed and educate their most needy children. Although our fundraising dinner in the Fall is our main fund-raising event, we can accept donations any time during the year.
Donations to SODA can be sent by mail to SODA, Box 27, Summit Lake, BC V0J 2S0 or through PayPal on our website www.samuha.ca
Samuha Samarthya works exclusively with People with Disabilities directly helping them to overcome various problems and challenges due to disability.
