“All is well,” reported Chaya Pamula, SOFKIN’s founder, who recently returned from a trip to India. “The children at SOFKIN are healthy and happy and they are making good progress at school.” Chaya’s activities during her month-long visit in August will be featured in this blog, as well as our next few postings.
21-Sep-15
One of Chaya’s activities – being a guest speaker at an event for aspiring women entrepreneurs in India – led to some exciting publicity for SOFKIN. A journalist from a popular newspaper in Hyderabad attended the event and subsequently wrote an inspiring article about SOFKIN. This article, in turn, was read by a television reporter. The reporter asked to visit SOFKIN and shot a 15 minute program that highlighted the children’s daily routine for his local TV channel. The combination of the newspaper article and TV program resulted in over 300 calls to SOFKIN – and 6 new, committed child sponsors.
Also, the Hyderabad team of PamTem, Inc. – the technology services company co-founded by Chaya based in the USA, Canada and India – organized a fun filled evening for the children of SOFKIN as part of their CSR activity. “Though it was a surprise visit, the way they have received us with a welcome song was really heart touching. I really enjoyed being with them,” said Vamshi Krishna Joginipalli, a Senior Database Analyst.
The visit included lots of activities and fun had by everyone. The children performed for their visitors, and the PamTen team entertained and played with the children. Most impressive were the children themselves. Sidhar Sridhar Pagolu, a Sr. Technical Recruiter said, “Maintaining unity and a friendly nature among the children is a difficult task. Here, they made it possible.” Everyone agreed it was something they would like to do more often. “The visit was so heart melting and motivating that we plan to arrange for such visits quite often”, commented Tanushree Das, HR Manager .
During this time, one of the SOFKIN sponsors in New Jersey, Mr. Mohan Patlola, CEO of Innovative Technologies, visited SOFKIN. He was joined by other sponsors – Mrs. & Mr. Manohar Matta (longtime friends and sponsors) and Mrs. & Mr. Prasad Danda from Hyderabad. They all celebrated their children’s Birthdays at SOFKIN. Mr. Patlola pledged to sponsor one month of operational expense each year for the SOFKIN homes in Hyderabad.
Stay tuned for our next blog, where we’ll tell you about the children’s activities and accomplishments at school.