16th June is a special day for us.

We began our journey on this day six years ago. As we enter our seventh year, and look back – the journey has been amazing. And now there are many with us who share our passion and goal to touch more and more lives. Any birthday is incomplete without a celebration. For Anavi, as has been the tradition, we celebrate by making others, not as fortunate as ourselves, a part of the celebration.

To help us make our birthday special – Dr. Madumita Sarkar( wife of Chief Engineer Kalyan Sarkar) joined us. She along with Dr. Zeeshan Rahman, friend of Aritra Chakraborty, daughter of our secretary Mrs. Meeta Chakraborty, helped us conduct a health checkup at the Sarsuna School premises for young girls from 7 to 13 years of age. Height, weight and a general checkup of the girls was carried out and health cards were issued to all of them. Doctors advised the girls and the caretakers at the institute regarding the importance of good health and hygiene.

“Some of the girls are shy, but doctor madam, in front of you they were so comfortable. This will really help us take better care of them”, remarked one of the house mothers who takes care of the young ones.

Till late afternoon, when we left, we were able to conduct checkups for fifty children. Some jokes were shared, some tears were shed but it seemed the girls were happier after meeting the doctor auntie and uncle. Our whole hearted thanks to both these wonderful people for spending their valuable time with us and these children to make our 6th anniversary so special.

How can you have a birthday without a feast? We had the special lunch with our little friends at Sarsuna School. The meal was sponsored by Mrs. Saswati Guha – our most sincere thanks to her – sister of Mrs. Meeta Chakraborty. On the menu were chicken, fish, dal, rice, vegetables, chutney and papad (any feast in Bengal would be incomplete without the last two items). The items were so well cooked that most of the members ended up over eating! Dieting be damned. Anavi sponsored the ice cream, which really bought the smiles on the little girls’ faces.

Our association with Sarsuna School has been one of the oldest one. We feel that by putting a small effort on our part we can really make a big change in the lives of these young girls. It is a view that finds resonance with Mr. and Mrs. Cremers and Anglo Eastern Group. With their support Anavi is building a computer centre at the Sarsuna School. Work is underway to repair a spare room at the premises which will be used for imparting computer training to these girls. The room will be called Cremers Foundation. Regular monitoring of the construction work will be carried out to ensure that the classes can start as soon as possible.

Anavi would again like to extend sincere gratitude to Dr. Madumita Sarkar, Dr. Zeeshan Rehman and Mrs. Saswati Guha for helping us make this a truly memorable anniversary. We also thank our donors and well wishers for making this a wonderful journey since 2009. We hope we will celebrate the next year in a bigger way, and there will be many more good things to share in between.