Nonprofits that offer free eye surgeries to India’s poor, provide educational services to underprivileged children, promote Sanskrit and supply humanitarian relief are winners of the Indiya Shine Awards contest organized by Great Nonprofits, in collaboration with Guidestar and Little India.
Nearly 70,000 people visited the Greatnonprofits.org website and 3,500 stakeholders posted reviews on more than 70 Indian nonprofits during the month long campaign, which sought to identify the best Indian nonprofits in the United States and India.
Sankara Eye Foundation, which garnered
more than 800 votes, was the runaway favorite securing not just the highest votes among Indian nonprofits, but also becoming the highest reviewed organization among the nearly 1.2 million nonprofits listed on Greatnonprofits. Indeed, the top four most reviewed nonprofits on Great Nonprofits are among the winners of the Indiya Shine Awards, including Make A Difference (Cochin, Kerala); Mata Amritanandamayi Math (Parayakadavu, Kerala) and Bhumi (Chennai, Tamil Nadu). Vibha (San Jose, Calif.) and Bhumi (Chennai, Tamil Nadu) rounded out the six winners.
US Winners
Large Nonprofit Winner Sankara Eye Foundation Milpitas, Calif.
Medium Nonprofit Winner Vibha Sunnyvale, Calif.
Small Nonprofit Winner Samskrita Bharati San Jose, Calif.
India Winners
Large Nonprofit Winner Mata Amritanandamari Math Parayakadavu, Kerala
Medium Nonprofit Winner Make a Difference Cochin, Kerala
Sankara Eye Foundation offers free
eyecare for India’s rural poor through eight hospitals and two sister
institutions all over India. Since it was established in Coimbatore in
1977, Sankara has peformed 537,00 eye surgeries at 8,340 eye camps all
over India, including over 83,000 surgeries in 2008 and its Vision
20/20 by 2020 programs seeks to eradicate curable blindness all over
India by providing one million free eye surgeries by 2020. The
organization boasts 200 volunteers and 35,000 donors all over the
United States.
Vibha offers educational and vocational training, rescue and
rehabilitation and physical care programs for underprivileged children
in India. Vibha has served 150,000 children through 190 projects since
it was established in 1991. Presently the organization has 825
volunteers in 15 U.S. cities who organize support for 35 projects in
India and seven in the United States, including Big Brother, Big Sister
in Twin Cities, Minn., and Make A Wish Foundation in Atlanta, Ga.
Samskrita Bharati’s mission is to “bring people together through the
medium of Spoken Samskrit and to inspire them about the importance of
social work in local communities.” Samskrita organizes language
classes, shloka recitation competitions for children, youth and family
camps, and Vishwa Samskrita Dinam — World Sanskrit Day.
The Mata Amritanandamayi Math organization’s projects in 30 countries are targeted
at the empowerment of women, education, disaster relief, homes for the poor,care homes for children, fighting hunger, healthcare, environmentalprograms, helping the local community, and research that benefits society
Make A Difference is a youth volunteer network that works with
underprivileged children in India, teaching them English, computer and
other necessary life skills to help them succeed in life and harness
their true potential. Presently, 800 Make A Difference volunteers teach
close to 2,500 kids in the Indian cities of Cochin, Pune, Hyderabad,
Chennai, Delhi, Mumbai, Trivandrum, Mangalore, Goa, Bangalore and
Nagpur.
Bhumi seeks to empower underprivileged children around Chennai through
orphanages and village community centers. The organization serves 500
children a year with computer, science and mathematics instruction and
career counseling and also organizes a sports and cultural festival for
children from 1st to 12th grade in Chennai.
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