Urmi Basu, Ana Oliviera feted at meet.
By The American Bazaar Staff
NEW YORK: The Sakhi for South Asian Women organization hosted its 25th Anniversary Gala event last month, raising nearly $400,000 in funds to go towards its humanitarian efforts in India and the surrounding region.
The event was held at the Three Sixtyº in Tribeca, New York City on May 25, at which over 400 guests were in attendance. In addition to the silent auction, which is where the incredible amount of money was raised, Sakhi feted Urmi Basu and Ana Oliviera for their humanitarian efforts.
Urmi Basu is best known for “Half the Sky,†a documentary film which highlights the oppression of women in several under-developed parts of the world. Basu is also the founder of New Light, an organization supporting women and girls in the red-light district of Kolkata.
Oliveira is the president and CEO of the New York Women’s Foundation (NYWF), which is “a cross-cultural alliance of women catalyzing partnerships and leveraging human and financial capital to achieve sustained economic security and justice for women and girls.â€
“Urmi Basu spoke about the sisterhood that serves as the bridge between Sakhi’s work in New York to the work to end gender based violence around the world, while Ana Oliveira, President of the New York Women’s Foundation, spoke passionately about the critical need to support and fund organizations like Sakhi that are often the first and only point of resource for countless women in need,” said Sakhi, in a statement.
The silent auction drew incredibly generous bids for Sakhi’s efforts to eliminate violence and inequity against women. An astonishing $76,435 was raised specifically for Sakhi, while another $23,500 was raised for the organization’s dedicated scholarship fund. In total, just under $400,000 was raised for Sakhi efforts.
The event was emceed by Joya Dass, best known as an anchor on popular south Asian entertainment program AVS [Asian Variety Show], and as a business anchor on NY1. Fusion group Red Baraat also performed at the event, flooring the audience with their unique and undeniably hypnotic fusion sound of east meets west.
Founded in 1989 by five women – Anannya Bhattacharjee, Mallika Dutt, Tula Goenka, Geetanjali Misra, and Romita Shetty – Sakhi (meaning “woman friendâ€) was founded to help to focus specifically on domestic violence against women in “Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and the South Asian Diaspora (including the West Indies and Africa).”