3rd visit and formation of PAKT

Kaustuv, Sandeepan and Biswajit - da (another friend of ours, introduced to us by Kaustuv, who is actively supporting this effort from the 1st visit itself) have made the 3rd team visit to our target area on Saturday the 18th of July with a shipment of 1400 kg of rice. This food material is distributed amongst approximately 2800 people in 670 odd families (expected to cover for one week). Like previous weeks, the expenses of food purchase and transport were met through individual contributions from some of the above people and a few of their friends.

Pictures here.

For ease of reference, henceforth we will refer to this initiative of ours to support the people of Sunderbans as "Help Sunderbans Initiative" or HSI.

Kaustuv, Sandeepan, Biswajit da and myself represent 3 independent non-profit organisations. Starting off more as individuals willing to help the people at Sunderbans, we have now involved these organisations in this work. It did not take us long to assess the manpower and fund involvement required to pull through this effort on a sustained basis.

Sandeepan and I are associated with Atanu Memorial Association, or ATMA, for nearly 6 years. It is a registered welfare association formed by our college mates. Pather Katha is Kaustuv's orkut travel community. Khelaghar is a youth club at Garia who are involved in social welfare activities. Biswajit da and our other new friends Susanta, Santanu & Partha are all associated with Khelaghar.

Pather Katha has joined hands with ATMA and Khelaghar to form PAKT i.e. PatherKatha-ATMA-Khelaghar Team!! In other words PAKT is an informal and temporary "JV" of these three associations, formed solely for the purpose of making Help Sunderbans Initiative (HSI) a reality.

But then PAKT is also so much more than these three organisations. It would have little chance to fulfil its purpose of formation without the many others, perhaps including you, who are putting their hands up to offer help in various forms.

[Hope this deluge of names does not distract you! Let us just say that HSI is merely the reference (or project) name for the undertaken work and PAKT is the group trying to carry it out.]