Howzzat!!

“HOWZZAT!”, “CATCH IT!”- this is what you would hear if you happened to be walking near 35th Street between 1st and 2nd Avenues in Manhattan on a warm Saturday morning last week. If curiosity led you into the park’s gate, you’d see a team strategizing off to one side, spectators sitting off to another side sipping on Gatorade and enjoyed the picnic-ideal weather while listening to music. You’d see volunteers, identified by their purple ribbons, dispersed in the registration area, a gleaming golden trophy on the registration table, and you wouldn’t be able to miss the excited cricket being played in the center of the park. This was YOUR DIL New York’s first Tape Ball Cricket Tournament!



The tournament was a huge success, where spectators, players and cricket fans alike had an amazing time. Congratulations to the Catch 20.2, the winning team of the tournament! We’d like to make a special mention of Catch 20.2’s Captain, Raza Mujtaba (who was also extremely helpful in coordinating and planning the tournament) and Catch 20.2’s Omer Salamat, the man of the Tournament and Fareen Butt, a YOUR DIL volunteer who made a mini movie of the tournament and Samar Shaheryar, who underwrote the costs of tournament so that all the profits would go towards our project! Check out pictures at http://www.yourdil.org/gallery/.



The six teams participating in the tournament were FYI (Captain: Ali Khan), Manhattan Cheetahs- the runner up team of the tournament! (Captain: Rizwan Akhter), the color coordinated Jiggling Joes (Captain: Owais Ahmad), NY Lions (Captain: YOUR DIL NY’s very own Kashif Akhtar), and the winning team, Catch 20.2 (Captain: Raza Mujtaba). All the teams played fantastic cricket from 9am till 8pm!

Thanks to the support of the spectators and the amazing teams of the tournament, YOUR DIL raised over $3,500- all of which will go towards building a school for underprivileged children in Mansehra, Pakistan.

Thanks to all the positive feedback we are about to begin planning another YOUR DIL Cricket Tournament. Stay posted to hear more about it!

Tape-Ball Cricket Tournament!

YOUR DIL NYC is having it's second fundraiser of the year, our much-anticipated tape-ball cricket tournament. For those who are unfamiliar with the tape-ball version of the sport, it is essentially the equivalent of street cricket, played with a tennis ball taped up to reduce bounce.



Only six teams will be able to enter the tournament, which will be played on Saturday June 9th in Manhattan. Each team will be eight people, eight overs wil be played per match. There will be two groups of three teams, the winner of each group will play in the final and the runner-up will play for 3rd place. So each team will get to play at least 2 matches, and 4 out of the 6 teams will play 3 matches during the day.



100% of the team entrance fee will go to YOUR DIL towards the building our our Mansehra school in NWFP, Pakistan, an area with the lowest literacy rate in the country as well as the part of Northern Pakistan that suffered some of the heaviest damage in the earthquake of 2005.

For more information on how to enter your team: http://www.yourdil.org/ny/cricket/

If you want to play but don't have an entire team, let us know and we will match you up with one.

Hope to see you on June 9th!

Beyond Belief - New Documentary at Tribeca Film Fest

For those of you in NYC, the sixth annual Tribeca Film Festival starts this week. It's a great time for cinefiles to catch documentaries, feature films and shorts, some of which never make it to the theatres, not for lack of quality, but lack of mainstream marketability. Hopefully that will not be the fate of Beyond Belief, a documentary about two American suburban housewives and their life-changing trip to Afghanistan. See below for more about the film and go to the Tribeca Film Fest Guide for tickets and showtimes.

From the filmmakers:
Filmed in the United States and Afghanistan, BEYOND BELIEF is the latest work from Beth Murphy, award-winning director/producer of documentaries, and journalist for television & radio news for 18 years. Her latest film is a story of hope and humanity, and tells the story of Susan Retik and Patti Quigley who are ordinary soccer moms until tragedy strikes. After losing their husbands on September 11th, Susan and Patti discover a powerful bond with each other, an unlikely kinship with widows halfway around the world, and a profound way to move beyond tragedy.

“Resolute to provide the same kind of support that sustained them through their tragedies, Patti and Susan dedicate themselves to empowering Afghan widows whose lives have been ravaged by decades of war, poverty and oppression – factors they consider to be the root causes of terrorism. Over the course of two years, the film follows how the women cope with loss, struggle and determination to raise their families as single mothers. When just clips from the film appeared on national television on the Oprah show, the featured Afghan organization received considerable donations in 2 days...money that will go a long way in educating young women! More than simply sending girls to school, the film will inspire more donations that will go directly to women for them to become self-sufficient -- so they can take care of themselves and their children. Once the film is seen by wider audiences, the results can mean more ongoing support for the desperate women of Afghanistan.”

The New Yorker on the Importance of Education in Developing Nations

Very interesting article in last week's New Yorker on "India's Skills Famine". It reiterates a point that has been a staple of our regular presentations and speeches to our event attendees - the history of economic progress points to success rooted in significant government and societal investment in education. In the persistent chicken and egg discussions for the basis for economic progress in developing countries, the argument in favor of the importance of education has a significant lead. An excerpt:

"Since the Second World War, the countries that have made successful leaps from developing to developed status have all poured money, public and private, into education. South Korea now spends a higher percentage of its national income on education than nearly any other country in the world. Taiwan had a system of universal primary education before its phase of hypergrowth began. And, more recently, Ireland’s economic boom was spurred, in part, by an opening up and expansion of primary and secondary schools and increased funding for universities."

Nick Kristoff Plugs DIL!

New York Times Columnist Nick Kristoff mentioned DIL in his April 7th blog entry following up on his column about Hasina Bibi, a woman in Meerwala, Pakistan attempting to get justice for the rape and murder of her 11 year old daughter. Kristoff, who many credit with bringing the dire situation in Darfur to light, received hundreds of responses to the Hasina Bibi story from people looking to help women in Pakistan and in response he wrote:

"In a broader sense, the way to prevent other tragedies like [these] is to encourage education for girls in Pakistan. One great organization that does that is Developments in Literacy; it now operates 200 schools for girls in Pakistan."

Many commented on his post thanking him for pointing out ways people in America, a world away, can help and DIL saw a significant increase in donations from these many generous souls.

Kristoff first learned about DIL from our Patron, Dr. Nafis Sadik, Special Advisor to the United Nations Secretary General, and we thank him for mentioning us as a potential solution to some of the issues faced by women in Pakistan.

BTW, you need to be a Times Select subscriber to access the full article and blog.

Network of Indian Professionals Literacy Awareness Event

On March 22nd, one of the most beautiful days of early spring in New York, YOUR DIL shared the floor with non-profit Room to Read in a literacy awareness event organized by the Network of Indian Professionals (Net-IP) and generously sponsored by JP Morgan. The view of midtown Manhattan from the 49th floor of the JP Morgan building was gorgeous. Once attendees had a chance to enjoy the view and mingle, they got to hear speeches made by the founder and President of the National Chapter of YOUR DIL, Samar Sheharyar, and the New York Chapter Head of Room to Read, Holly Huffman. The speeches, which were informative and sincere, sparked many interesting questions from the attendees. It was wonderful to see three youth targeted organizations, Net-IP, Room to Read, and YOUR DIL, collaborate, show such respect for each others work and learn from each other. It is this motivation, enthusiasm and respect that make these organizations able to be so successful in working towards their goals.

The profit from the night were split between YOUR DIL and Room to Read. Since this event had a different flavor from our other YOUR DIL events, we would love to hear your feedback. Please feel free to leave comments or email us with your thoughts and suggestions!

-Sophia Umar NYC Chapter Head

YD NYC Mixes it Up for Mansehra!

People kept streaming into “The Vault” late into the night on March 7th, where YOUR DIL NY was having its first event of the year, “Mixing It Up for Mansehra”. DJ Karsh Kale, one of electronic music’s brightest stars, was spinning for the night. Karsh’s mesmerizing music, along with the subterranean venue, which true to its name was a catacomb of brick walls and vaulted ceilings, set the stage for an extremely enjoyable evening. The event, which raised over $5,300, was a huge success, made possible by the support of the attendees and the outstanding work of almost 30 fantastic volunteers.

Not only did the 230 attendees of the event enjoy a great evening, they also got to hear speeches about the work that YOUR DIL does, and the Mansehra project, which is the specific project that the profits raised during the night went to. This project is YOUR DIL’s effort to build a school in Mansehra, NWFP, the area hit hardest by the 2005 earthquake. The school will have state of the art facilities, including handicapped access for the thousands of children injured in the earthquake. Each school will have a capacity of 350 students and will be run by an experienced on-the-ground NGO.



If you attended the event, please post comments or email us about what you liked, and what could have been better. We are in the process of planning our remaining events for the year and would love to incorporate your feedback in our planning process. If you did not have a chance to attend, we hope to see you at our future events!

YOUR DIL Boston Launch Event

There was a lot of excitement and expectations surrounding our first event thanks to the hard work of all our volunteers. Word spread fast about our fundraising event, Feb 16th at Vox in downtown Boston. We had a lot of interest, especially considering that we held our first meeting only a month before.


There was a diverse crowd of around 100 people that gathered at Vox. It was a Valentine themed party, with fresh cut long stem roses, chocolates and candies everywhere, and a fantastic henna artist.

We are very proud to say that in total we raised $3665! We were lucky to have very generous donors and hard working volunteers that helped us to spread the word and build excitement for YOUR Dil here in Boston.

YD Boston to Hold First Meeting Jan 18

YOUR DIL Boston will hold its first meeting for on Thursday Jan 18, 8 pm at the Harvard Club. Please meet the organizers at the reception in the lobby.Please bring
your id's with you to check in.

Feel free to invite your friends who might be interested in our cause for the meeting.Refreshments will also be served.

Address for the venue

1 Federal St
Boston, MA 02110
(617) 536-6728
harvardclub.com

Thanks
Shireen Malik, Chapter Head
shireenb.malik@gmail.com

YOUR DIL NYC General Meeting Jan 18

Its feels unnatural for the board and regular volunteers to not have hundreds of YOUR DIL planning emails in their inboxes everyday, but that's about the change very soon. After lots of brainstorming and planning, the New York YOUR DIL chapter is extremely excited about getting started with planning 2007 events!! The first general volunteer meeting for this year will take place on Thursday, January 18th at 6:30pm. If you are interested in volunteering, or just learning more about what the organization does, send an email to Bilal Khan at bnkhan@gmail.com to RSVP. He will let you know where the meeting will be held. I would highly encourage you to attend and to bring your friends who may also be interested in YOUR DIL's cause!

2006 was an extremely successful year for the New York YOUR DIL chapter with events ranging from a concert to an elegant annual gala. Profits from these events went towards making the dream for education a reality for hundreds of children in Pakistan. We have an exciting challenge ahead of us to surpass last years success and since YOUR DIL is 100% volunteer driver, we will need a tremendous amount of energy and creativity from our regular volunteers and new volunteers to make 2007 even more successful!