This July there are two 4-day camps for Desi teens, both camps taking youth through a curriculum around identity, social advocacy and connecting with local activists. The first one is DC Desi Summer, based in Washington DC. The second is one I’ve been volunteering with, the Bay Area Solidarity Summer (BASS) which is a project of the Alliance of South Asians Taking Action (ASATA).

On July 22nd, South Asian American teenagers from across the San Francisco Bay Area will convene for a life-changing experience. The youth will be attending the first ever Bay Area Solidarity Summer (BASS), a four-day leadership camp for youth of South Asian heritage seeking to learn about progressive issues, gain organizing skills, connect with other South Asian activists, and develop themselves into leaders. The all-inclusive camp will provide space for young people to learn skills on how to be a social activist, as well as learn about issues affecting the South Asian community both locally and globally.

BASS is open to youth of South Asian heritage ranging in age from 14 to 19 years old. The camp costs only $50, which covers all housing and food expenses for four days and three nights. Held in the beautiful Center for Third World Organizing Training and Retreat Center (often described as the “CTWO Mansion”), the intense camp will cover a wide range of issues such as Creative Arts and Action, Racial Profiling, Hip Hop Revolutionaries, and Environmental Justice. An important component of the curriculum will be a look back at the 100 years of history of South Asian Bay Area student activism.[bass]BASS is following the path of a legacy of South Asian youth programs.

Though in the inaugural year, this is not is not the first time a camp for South Asian youth has been created. In fact, in 2004 and 2005 the Bay Area hosted Organizing Youth! (OY!), a training camp for Desi youth. Across the nation, various South Asian youth camps like this have popped up over the past fifteen years, from NYC’s Youth Solidarity Summer (YSS) to Washington DC’s DC Desi Summer. Many of the organizers at this year’s BASS have come through one of the many programs. [bass]

I was brought on to the BASS team in the past couple of months and am ecstatic to be a part of such an innovative project where I can focus my energy to develop a new generation of leaders. We’ve put together a great resource list on our website of connections we thought a South Asian teen may want. There’s a fantastic all volunteer team on board (just check out their bios!) and we’ve been working hard on creating a curriculum that we would have wanted when we were all Desi teens. But don’t just take my word for it.

“Organizing BASS has drawn together amazing South Asian organizers, scholars, and activists,” says Ramesh Kathanadhi, a BASS organizer. “Selfishly I am part of doing this to learn from my amazing peers, and make a space for us to connect more deeply with our communities here in the Bay Area.”

“BASS participants will be building on the legacy of 100 years of Bay Area South Asian student activism,” says Anirvan Chatterjee, long time ASATA activist. “Desi students at UC Berkeley and Stanford during the 1910s were fighting colonial rule, organizing with other communities and making their own media. The BASS summer program is a great way for youth with an interest in civics or politics to dive deeper into our community’s traditions.” [bass]

I have to admit, I’m a little bit jealous that I didn’t have access to these trainings and resources when I was a teen. But this is what it’s all about, isn’t it? Leadership development, mentorship and paving a path for the next generation?

If you are a South Asian teen or know of a South Asian teen that would be interested in participating, please visit BASS’s website or DC Desi’s website. The applications are available online and application deadlines are in mid-May. If you are interested in volunteering or donating to either of the camps, please do contact us – both BASS and DC Desi are looking for volunteers and for funds to make the summer camp a success. It takes a village, as they say…

His Khan Academy channel on YouTube has received over 48 million views so far. But when he first started making video tutorials, he had just one viewer in mind. Back then Khan, who doesn’t have a degree in education but does have an MBA and degrees in math and science, was working as a hedge fund analyst in Boston. He made YouTube videos to remotely tutor his cousin in New Orleans in math.Lots of other people started watching the original videos and leaving the kind of positive comments you just don’t really expect on YouTube, such as “first time I smiled doing a derivative.” Khan started making more tutorials and left his job to pursue the work full time. Here are a couple of samples from the growing library of tutorials:

Basic addition

Contango

The videos seem to be popular because they are short, people can pause, rewind and repeat at their convenience, and learn in the privacy of their own rooms. Khan’s relaxed, straightforward style of delivery doesn’t hurt. The Academy uses game mechanics elements, like points and badges, similar to the kind that may be ensnaring you in a web of social media services like Foursquare, to help people get addicted to learning.

Bill Gates has used the videos to tutor his own kids and calls Khan’s approach “a glimpse of the future of education.” Google gave the Khan Academy $2 million to create more courses and translate the core library of videos into the world’s most widely spoken languages. A pilot program using them in classrooms is underway in the Los Altos School District in California.

But what does this mean for people around the world who don’t go to school, kids who have to work to support themselves and their families? In his TED talk last month (embedded at the top of this post) and other appearances Khan mentions that kids in Kolkata, for example, who are too poor to attend school could use the tutorials for a couple of hours each day to narrow the gap between themselves and their peers attending school, even become part of a peer network of learners who help and tutor each other.

I think the video tutorial system looks like a great tool for motivated kids anywhere to supplement their schooling, but needs supporting programs offering very cheap laptops, tablets and/or public computer access for the neediest kids to benefit. Khan’s goal with his video tutorial approach is “changing education for the better by providing a free world-class education to anyone anywhere.” Does this ambitious goal seem attainable? What do you think of his videos?

[Moving Swiftly::][GuerillaTactics][POORPEOPLESPLANET by mandeep.sethi.music

Full disclosure, I've been helping get the word out for Poor Peoples Planet and am excited to support a young Desi American whose lyrics are smart, conscious, and inspired by the hyphenated identity. But in the course of hanging out with Mandeep this week, I was really impressed to find out that he is one of the co-founders of Slumgods. Based in India, Slumgods was founded in 2010 as the first B-Boy collective in India bringing together emcees, breakers, artists of India and America. The Slumgods are bringing it hard and fresh using the the five elements of hip hop as a tool of empowerment for the slum youth in the Dharavi slums with a community center called Tiny Drops Hip Hop Center.

India's first breaking organization for lower income group children, this attention-grabbing mix of street dance and athletics is infiltrating their lives and bringing positive change to their communities.

Kids from the ages of 10 to 21 are breaking to forget the stress and rut of lives lived as rag pickers and apprentices, electricians, tailors and carpenters. They become the dance, like the original breakers, underprivileged youths from the Bronx in the 1970s.

In America, as his mother sewed on buttons at a sweatshop and his father fulfilled his role as the ubiquitous Indian cabdriver, HeRa found a sense of structure at the local community center that he hopes to replicate at TinyDrops. [cnngo]

Mandeep Sethi will be heading back to his Slumgods roots in Feb for a mini-tour throughout India. He’ll be collaborating with local musicians, such as drum and bass artist Delhi Sultanate and the first Indian reggae band Reggae Rajahs. The last time he went he created this.

Armed with a camera, Mandeep will be documenting his journey this time around too, as he goes around India making hip hop musical connections and expanding Slumgods even further. If you are in India or know of hip hop artists that Mandeep should collaborate with, drop a comment in the comments. To follow him even more, become a Mandeep Sethi fan on Facebook or follow him on twitter @mandeepsethi. And of course, keep an eye out on iTunes to download your copy of Poor Peoples Planet soon. Trust me, it’s an album that is not to be missed.

Boom Bapri-Bap Rap!

Previously: Aisee Taisee Out of Nowhere, Getting Gully

Actually, there was not much sleeping — it was more of a Hang Out than a Sleep Out and we had pizza and burgers — but the issue wasn’t lost. Finding warm and dry shelter is a challenge for an increasing number of South Asians, mostly Sikh men, in the southwest London neighborhood of Southall.

Lodging isn’t supposed to be a problem. Southall is the center of London’s vast Punjabi community, one of the most significant Little Indias in the world, home to one of the largest gurdwaras outside India, and a cultural nexus that brought the bhangra phenomenon to nightclubs around the globe. It’s also a hardscrabble quarter that, like New York’s Lower East Side, gave immigrants the means to establish themselves in a new land. The community took care of its own and looks back fondly on its achievements.

So it has come as a shock that in 2010 there are about a hundred homeless men, mostly Sikhs but including Sri Lankans and Somalis, sleeping rough in one of London’s proudest immigrant neighborhoods.SWAT, the Sikh Welfare and Awareness Team, is working to alleviate the problem and to call attention to it (it was the sponsor of the sleep out on February 27). The volunteer group was the first to call attention to the plight of the homeless, posted video interviews, in Punjabi, with some of these men on youtube. It has also started a Facebook group, which has attracted over 5,000 followers.

SWAT is collecting money and clothing, working with gurdwaras and other community organizations, providing drug and alcohol counseling, and trying to make other public services available to them. Its volunteers from other parts of London come to Southall regularly to deliver clothing.

But the challenges are complex. In addition to providing basic necessities, SWAT is trying to raise support for people in circumstances that are often considered shameful. The presence of the Sikh homeless runs counter to the narrative of the hardworking self-sufficient immigrant, and discussion of drug and alcohol problems within the community is still taboo.

“People feel that helping the Southall rough sleepers will only further fund drug habits,” says Tina Gahir, one of the organizers of the sleep out and a volunteer with Crisis and Shelter from the Storm, two prominent homelessness organizations in the UK. “For most Indians, charity begins at home. Many send remittances to their village or relatives in India or make donations to a religious cause. We don’t really have a sense of uniting to tackle problems in the UK currently.”

She hopes that community activism among younger people can alleviate some of these problems and promote honest discussion about them.

But some initiatives take time. Our 20-odd crew of Londoners stamped our feet to keep warm, made bathroom runs to a nearby house, drank tea, and enjoyed conversation beneath the sodium-vapor lights of Norwood Green Park. The neighborhood was silent and still, except for the occasional car slowing to see what was going on. The intermittent rain became steady, and we huddled under umbrellas.

We had been expecting about 70 people who had responded to the Facebook invitation, but there is always a challenge in translating online support to offline action. But people came through in the end — to the tune of £7,000 to support SWAT.

Let’s hope this is the start of something big on behalf of Southall’s homeless.

Photo by Preston Merchant

India Development Service (IDS) Save-A-Mother project aims to minimize suffering and death associated with pregnancy and child birth. We have been working in partnership with local NGOs in the state of Uttar Pradesh, India, which has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world. Many other regions in India and rest of the world are in a similar situation where this program can be replicated.

Save-A-Mother programs educate women about pregnancy, nutrition, immunization, delivery and care of the child. Save-A-Mother has a complementary benefit in saving the child also.
Our Objectives

1. Decrease maternal mortality by 50% in Sultanpur in 5 years. (Pilot Project)
2. Replicate this model to two more districts in 2 more years and institutionalise the program.
3. Replicate the program to vulnerable districts where mortality exceeds the national average.
4. Partner with NGOs in other high MMR countries [Link]

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p>Ruchira said that the Chicago-based organizers are primarily looking for involvement via the donation of money. They have a dedicated core of organizers and volunteers, including Ruchira, but they were having some trouble spreading the word and gathering contributions for their efforts, especially from the younger demographic. This led to a conversation between myself and Ruchira as to why it is often difficult to find donations from the under-40 crowd. I attribute it to several reasons:

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p>1) Younger potential donors usually want to donate more than money. They typically have youthful energy and a full supply of idealism. Thus, they want direct involvement, not simply involvement by proxy.

<

p>I know this is true of me. I give money to charities every year, but I feel like I am making more of an impact (whether or not I really am) when I donate time and effort instead of just money. When the earthquake hit Haiti I read a couple of good articles about how it is often counterproductive to donate anything BUT money.

<

p>2) There is a greater social (and personal) cache that comes with starting your own cause than in supporting an existing one. And it sometimes looks good on your resume and helps “pick up” guys/girls.

<

p>In the desi community it seems like everyone I know is starting an NGO or charity or has a cause they are not just supporting, but leading. I am not questioning people’s intentions at all, but I wonder about the overall effect. How many clusters of quite similar desi NGOs/Charities/Causes are already out there but are not cooperating because everyone wants to be a leader or execute a more narrowly focused vision? I wonder if a more cooperative effort would be more productive. There is the old saying that one should “lead, follow, or get out of the way.” In the desi community most people only see two of those three options. In this day and age geography should not limit people. Sepia Mutiny is not an NGO or charity but we have successfully run it since 2004 without all of us even having met to this day.

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p>3) There are just too many causes out there. I am overwhelmed. Even picking stocks seems easier.

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p>In addition to all the good causes out there (desi and non-desi related) there are also South Asian American politicians asking for our donations. Many of us believe strongly in supporting those whose policies align with our own, but sometimes we also feel guilty. There is so much money in politics already. Do I give to politics and my social causes? What percentage to each? Indecision then leads to inaction which helps no one.

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p>4) All our friends (except the really lazy ones) are running in that race for breast cancer/AIDS/MS etc. It slowly saps our attention span and diffuses our giving.

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p>I support all those causes and I would give money to sponsor my friends for some of them (I am going to give nominal amounts to several of a large group of friends running the MS150 here in Texas). BUT…most of the people I know run races as much for themselves (goal is to get in shape or ) as the charity they are supporting. That is totally ok. Does that meet one’s yearly obligation though (assuming you believe in an obligation)? Does it then deter one from giving beyond that race?

Those are my thoughts and I have some ideas on how I would improve this “state” we are in. I’d like to hear some of yours though. Do you think there is even a problem or are you happy with the “free market” approach that exists now?

It was for this reason, my friends and I joked around about how we needed an Eid goat. Easter has the bunny rabbit, Christmas has Santa Claus. But growing up as a Muslim kid in the U.S., we didn’t really have anything equivalent. I was always told Eid was my version of Christmas, but then, why did all the other kids get presents and we didn’t? As we got older, it seemed like the Eid goat would have been the perfect solution.

Thus, I had already goats on my mind when maitri tweeted the following “I Want a Goat” video [NSFW]. It’s promoting a program, I Want a Goat, where you can design and donate a goat to a village in India. The modern twist is that this video has hipster charm splashed all over it.

I realize the tie between this video and Eid is tenuous at best. I found the the song amusing and the cause seems legit. The project was started by a woman Debbie who volunteered in the village for seven months and saw a similar program run successfully in India. For only a $20 donation, you will be donating a goat to a village in Koraput. Why goat?

For tribal people who are landless, raising goats is a great alternative source of income. Families who breed goats can earn a good profit selling the kids in the local market. The extra income provides a safety net for families that can be used for things like medicine, food during lean periods and farm equipment. While I was volunteering in Koraput, I personally witnessed a village that was transformed by a similar goatery program. Three years ago, Goats & Hopes, a UK-based charity, gave a goat to each of the 37 families in the village. I went to visit the village and was greeted by 96 goats and their families who told me stories of how the goats have given them the extra savings they needed to break free from their debt to moneylenders. The success of this program demonstrates the long-term effects of goats as a sustainable income-generation source. [iwantagoat]

It seems like this project is new and just getting off the ground. Abhi’s already jumped on the goat wagon (“I donated a white goat with gold uggs that I named Darwin using that site.”) If you donate and play on the site, you can even enter for a chance to win a flight to India.

So there you have it. Eid Mubarak and go design your own goat today!

Project Ahimsa is a global effort to empower youth through music. The organization was founded in 2001 in response to the violent attacks on Sikhs and South Asians after 9/11. The organization operates under the auspices of the Patel Foundation for Global Understanding, a registered 501c3 non-profit based in Tampa, FL. Project Ahimsa’s mission is to empower youth though developing and supporting community based music education.

The vision of Project Ahimsa is to generate unity from the means to the ends. Funding to develop the “means” comes from music concerts featuring artists from diverse cultural and religious backgrounds. Artists such as the Black Eyed Peas, The Doors, Nitin Sawhney, MC Rai, JBoogie’s Dubtronic Science, DJ Cheb i Sabbah, Karsh Kale, Bobby Friction, and MIDIval Punditz have all performed at Project Ahimsa benefit events. Attended by a diverse audience of non-Indians and Indians alike, Project Ahimsa events are built on a healthy collaboration between international artists, non-governmental organizations, public institutions, corporations, and promoters creating a diverse experience interesting to all ages and backgrounds. [link]

Here is one of several videos from Ahimsa’s website that explains what “empowering youth through music” means exactly:

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p align=left>Ahimsa is selling a great benefit album to raise funds for their cause:

Global Lingo is an innovative benefit album launch that is uniting real “Slumdog Musicaires” from around the world to join forces with other artist-activists to create and album that speaks the universal language of music. Unlike other albums that benefit children, Global Lingo is an album MADE by the children who have benefited from its programs over the past seven years.

Renowned musicians like Michael Franti and Spearhead (with Sly and Robbie), J-Boogie, Miguel Migs, Junior Reid and the kids themselves from Project Ahimsa youth programs Manav Sadhna are all featured on this first-of-its-kind collaboration and musical celebration of diversity, delivering funky rhythms of reggae, bhangra, hip hop and electronic in a mix-tastic compilation. [Link]

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p>

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p align=left>”Global Lingo” can be downloaded at I-tunes here. I listened to the tracks on my run earlier this evening. It is feel-good hip hop, especially when you know that the money is going to such a good cause. Even if you aren’t interested in the music but want to support the cause you can donate here. If you have any experience working with or volunteering for Project Ahimsa we’d love to hear from you in the comments.

As a blogger residing behind the computer I rarely get to meet first-hand the dedicated activists we often write about. It is the difference between seeing ice cream and tasting it. The folks at this conference breathed their causes and it makes you re-evaluate whether or not you are doing enough in your own life. This really is the time to think and act beyond your immediate sphere.

At the beginning of the conference we were each handed a post-card which we were to self address and hand back to the organizers. The post card asked a single question: “What did the Summit inspire you to do?” The message we wrote was for our own benefit and the post card was to arrive in the mail to remind us of our commitment.

The challenge at the Summit has inspired me to attempt something big and I have started researching and working on a plan. The next time I attend a South Asian summit I would like to be able to say that I did something to move the ball forward, if only by a few yards.

With up to 1.5 million people in Myanmar now believed to be facing the threat of starvation and disease and with relief efforts still largely stymied by the country’s isolationist military rulers, frustrated United Nations officials all but demanded Thursday that the government open its doors to supplies and aid workers…

“The situation is profoundly worrying,” said the United Nations official in charge of the relief effort, John Holmes, speaking in unusually candid language for a diplomat. “They have simply not facilitated access in the way we have a right to expect…” [Link]

<

p>The Tsunami was unimaginably bad…BUT at least the rest of the world wasn’t as impotent then as we are now. Considering the massive devastation in 2004, the world actually responded relatively quickly to minimize deaths after the actual event (certainly faster than the Hurricane Katrina response). This however, is just frustrating. Children are dying of thirst because visas aren’t being granted! For my part I am doing what I can. I found out that the relief organization CARE International was one of the first to have boots on the ground in Myanmar since they had an office there. They are actually disbursing aid. I also know that the first of the checks that our Uncle Sam is sending our way to help with the U.S. economic recovery will be hitting our bank accounts this week. I know it flies in the face of a sound economic strategy to send money meant to boost our economy straight overseas, but I’m willing to upset those “elite” economists. I just sent a chunk of change to CARE. I’ll just pretend there was no rebate. UNICEF is a good bet too.

<

p>Part of what is so aggravating about this situation is that India actually gave Myanmar a warning about the cyclone. If the junta had simply communicated that warning effectively then at least some lives could have been saved.

Indian meteorologists have said they had given neighbouring Myanmar 48 hours’ warning before a cyclone slammed into the country, killing more than 22,000 people and leaving over 40,000 missing.

The comments from the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) came amid US allegations that Myanmar’s military junta failed to warn its citizens of the impending storm.

“Forty-eight hours before (tropical cyclone) Nargis struck, we indicated its point of crossing (landfall), its severity and all related issues to Myanmarese agencies,” IMD spokesman B.P. Yadav told AFP Tuesday.

The department is mandated by the United Nations World Meteorological Organisation to track cyclones in the region.

“Our job is to give warnings and in advance, and we take pride in saying that we gave warnings much, much in advance and there was enough time to take precautionary measures such as evacuation,” he added. [Link]

Not only will untold thousands die in Myanmar, it will also virtually wipe out their precious rice exports sending already high prices even higher. Thus, to some extent, hunger will radiate outward from the Myanmar tragedy:

Cyclone damage to rice crops and inventories in Myanmar’s Irrawaddy delta and other areas may impair its exports of the grain in 2008 and further tighten the world rice market, the U.N. food agency said on Wednesday.

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p>The storm, which battered five states accounting for 65 percent of the former Burma’s rice output, may trigger “localised food shortages” and require imports from neighbours, it said. [Link]

<

p>NASA has posted some satellite imagery which shows the region before and after the cyclone hit.

<

p>Just what is Than Shwe, the “leader” of Myanmar thinking? Unfortunately, he may be getting advice from his fortune tellers:

A fortuneteller’s warning that blood would spill in the city of Yangon prompted the general in 2005 to shift the country’s capital from there to Naypyidaw, a jungle outpost 300 kilometers (186 miles) inland, said Irrawaddy News, a weekly that covers Myanmar from Thailand….

“The amount of superstitious beliefs, the following of soothsayers make it difficult to understand why they act in a certain way,” said Christopher Roberts, a post-doctoral fellow at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies who specializes in Myanmar politics. [Link]

If any readers have other suggestions for how one can aid the people of Myanmar, let’s here it.

That being said, I did want to draw your attention to three recent “tips” that I didn’t want falling through the cracks:

1) The fellowship application deadline for Indicorps is fast approaching and I know there are many SM readers who would make perfect candidates:

Who: You! Indicorps seeks to engage the most talented young Indians from around the world on the frontlines of India’s most pressing challenges; in the process, we aim to nurture a new brand of socially conscious leaders with the character, knowledge, commitment, and vision to transform India and the world.

Why Now: We are currently recruiting soon-to-be college graduates and professionals of Indian origin for our August 2008-2009 Fellowship. There are over 50 exciting community-based projects ranging from educating tribal youth in Maharashtra to increasing production of natural dye based products in Karnataka.

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p>2) There is a new blog worth checking out called Out Against Abuse. It is a forum dedicated to issues surrounding domestic abuse in the South Asian community:

Out against abuse is an online blog based forum created to bring together activists, volunteers, survivors, and members of the community to encourage the discussion of gender related abuse and how it affects the South Asian community. We hope through constant dialogue and collaboration we can all learn from each other and work to educate our community on how to end gender related violence in our homes and lives. [Link]

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p>3) Finally, The Kominas have a new album out titled, “Wild Nights in Guantanamo Bay.” Taz featured them in a post back in 2006. I hope they get on to the new Harold and Kumar movie soundtrack with that title:

This is the highly anticipated debut release of quite possibly the most popular Taqwacore band in existence. The CD was recorded with the band fresh off the first US Taqwacore tour. The CD includes old crowd favorites like “Suicide Bomb the Gap” and “Sharia Law in the USA,” but also includes newer songs with a more punk edge, like “Blow Shit Up.” [Link]

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p>Keep sending in the tips. We won’t be able to blog each one but we do read them all.