Happy New Year!

Thank goodness the New Year has started! We are looking forward to leaving the events of 2001 behind. Let's look freshly at 2002 with open hearts and minds, keeping our energies focused on positive pursuits.

New Session Starting

We've started our new session January 14th with 24 students, including 6 new students from other organizations in Calcutta. They will start in our baseline Typing class while our returning students are moving on to learn PowerPoint presentations and how to build Web Pages.
For the first time four of our deaf students are starting the Web Page class and will have their pages put up on the Uddami site in a few weeks. Visit the "Meet the Students" page of our website to see all of the web pages of our students. Safe and Sound in Calcutta W ith the current tensions between Pakistan and India we want to let everyone know that here in Calcutta we are thousands of kilometers away from the borders and only have to worry about the usual power cuts, phone cuts, strikes and mosquitoes - but not the Pakistani Army. Thanks to everyone who has written to us expressing their concern for our safety. We hope for a peaceful resolution to all the troubles in India and the United States.
Today, Tuesday Jan 22nd, at least 5 policemen were killed in an attack on the American Centre in Kolkatta. The American Centre is a very visible building in the center of the city and far away from our home and school. We are not worried - it still feels much safer here than any American city we have lived in and we believe that this attack was an isolated incident.

All we want for Saraswati Puja is a generator.

On February 17th we celebrate the Hindu festival of Saraswati Puja. Saraswati is the goddess of wisdom and knowledge. On this day Hindu children are taught to read and write their first words as it is considered an auspicious day to begin a child's education. Schools organize special prayers for Saraswati and students pray to do well on their exams. They place their books before the deity and do not do any reading or writing that day, so no one goes to school either.

Normally we don't mind a day off but for two weeks now we've had daily power cuts which last for 2-4 hours and unfortunately occur sometime during our computer classes. Almost every day we have to cancel at least one class - the students are having a difficult time progressing and we are at our wit's end trying to keep a steady pace of teaching with all the forced breaks.

One way to keep our classes going without these unnecessary breaks is for us to have a generator when a power cut strikes. Won't someone please please please donate $300 so we can buy a generator? If you include your photo we will hang it in a place of honour in our classroom and say daily prayers to your image!

Apprenticeship Program

Since December we have been using the Internet to search for outsource and work-at-home projects for our advanced students. Andrew Basanta, Gopal Das and Khokan Das have been working with Bryan searching for information about data entry, word processing, transcription, web design and graphics design projects that can be done here in Calcutta. So far we have a few leads but nothing concrete. If anyone out there has a need for our services, or knows of another business that could use help in any of the areas mentioned above, please email us at uddami@india.com .

Shameless Plug for Money

Since we had to cancel our official fundraiser last October our finances have started running on the ragged edge. One of the best ways to help us is to pledge a small amount of money every month to Uddami - say the amount spent on a dinner or even a breakfast (at San Francisco prices!) out.
To give you an idea of how much we spend - our minimal monthly expenses are $300 (includes just teacher salaries, rent, internet, electricity and phone). So if 30 people pledge a mere $10 per month we would know that these expenses could be covered.

Student Job Update

We are thrilled to have 3 of our students working locally. Since December Tabrez Khan, Imran Zeea and John Francis have been creating voter registration information for the February election in Uttar Pradesh. To create each card they match a photo of each voter to their card and enter the voter's information in Hindi using a special keyboard. We thank ComputerAids in Calcutta for this opportunity and look forward to doing lots more work with them .