Greetings from the Indian Trisoc of Loughborough!
Desi Society, National Hindu Students Forum Loughborough, and Sikh Society are putting together a charity event on March 15th called ‘Dil Se’, which translates to ‘from the heart’. Several members from each society have come together to organize a charity dinner and dance show in Leicester. Dil Se is organised in order to help three charities, Loughborough Glebe House, Project Chiraag and NHSF Manav charity. This is the fourth year running that Dil Se will be organized as it has raised over £10,000 in the last three years.
Loughborough Glebe House is a local charity, which supports children and adults with learning disabilities. These include community life choices daytime activities, support at home, evening social clubs, weekend breaks and challenge activity days. Last year Dil Se donated £1500 to them and hopes to raise more this year.
In India, currently 72,000 villages, home to 400 million people have no electricity provision. They use lights, which are powered with kerosene that have many social, economic, health and environmental risks. It emits excessive amounts of carbon dioxide and has poor quality life.
Project Chiraag is based in India, however, many UK universities including Loughborough are affiliated with them and help raise money for this cause. The main aim of this project is to light up villages in India. In the last two years, they have been very successful and lit 104 villages, positively affecting approximately 3842 households consisting of more than 21,000 people.
Last summer, students from Loughborough travelled to India to learn about the project and light up villages. Loughborough Indian societies are working very closely with this project and hope to help brighten people’s lives. Their solution to kerosene lighting is solar energy which is not hazardous to the environment or people’s health and it is ideal as India receives 300-325 sunny days a year. It fulfills two important purposes of energy security while combating global warming at the same time. It allows social and economic development of the country by allowing people to travel after sunset (with the portable, charged light), assists in working, cooking, studying and weaving baskets post sunset, and in general improves living standards which is the main underlying aim.
If we reach our target of £5000 this year it will allow us to light up a whole village in India. In order to do justice to our vision, ‘Light for all’ and achieve our target, all the societies come together to organize Millie’s cookie sales and sweet sales. Please come and support us, donate as much as you can as every little penny counts.
Project Chiraag hopes to reach 15,000 households, 75,000 rural Indians by 2015 so if you would like to contribute towards this cause or support us by attending the event please contact 07583541102. Tickets are priced at £25, which includes a coach from Loughborough campus to Leicester and back, a three course Indian meal, a charismatic play and free entry into FND.
