Tag Archives: gofundme

Treatment From Mumbai to Houston: Help A Family

This is about my husband, Sanjiv Agarwal.

Sanjiv is the quintessential 40-year-old – an engineer, working as a marketing professional with an FMCG company. Full of dreams and full of life, always smiling, super intelligent, the center of attraction of any gathering, the best son to his parents, the most caring brother to her sisters, and a doting father to my 11-year-old boy. He is a young heart wanting to achieve something big and also enjoy it to the fullest. His friends would describe him as an absolute gem.

We met at our MBA school and became best friends instantaneously. While I tried to keep finding the best girlfriend for him, we both fell in love ourselves. We got married a few years later in 2007 and now we have a son who is 11-year-old and three of us were leading a small happy life.

Last year our lives turned upside down. Sanjiv was diagnosed with high-risk blood cancer – Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia B – in May 2020. We were absolutely shocked, as there is no family history of cancer. We were informed that the cure was few rounds of Chemotherapy ultimately followed by Bone Marrow Transplant. We had one day’s notice to decide and commence the Chemo as his case was very acute.

Post his first chemo, Sanjiv developed an extremely rare and troublesome fungal infection while he was immunocompromised. This got us into a vicious cycle as the fungal infection prohibited further chemo treatment without which cancer would not go away into remission. By early November, cancer showed up on his skin as leukemia deposits. His condition worsened with leukemia in the blood, leukemia in the skin, and fungal infection in the body. That’s when doctors in India raised their hands and told us that MD Anderson Hospital in Houston, USA was our best hope. By mid-November, I moved to Houston, temporarily, along with Sanjiv and my son.

Treatment is definitely possible, but prohibitively expensive. 

Doctors here are trying to balance out the chemo and infection treatment to get him ready for a Bone Marrow transplant. We are done with 2 rounds of Chemotherapy and there have been lots of complications post Chemo, and now we await BMT as a final step. BMT is a very intensive process where the body’s immune system is being rebooted and can be complicated as well. The positives news is that the leukemia in the bone marrow is under control, skin leukemia is being treated with Radiation and the bone marrow transplant is now being discussed with the best doctors here.

The last 8 months have been extremely draining for us as a family- physically, emotionally, and financially. All our life’s savings have been used up in the treatment in Mumbai and America.

I have created a Gofundme page: https://gofund.me/0b63f076

I am highly hopeful that I can find some help here in this foreign country from fellow Indians. I want to complete Sanjiv’s treatment here and take him home healthy and hearty.

Prerna Garg has written this piece to receive help for her husband.

Harjeet’s Family Suffers the Aftermath of COVID

(Featured Image from left to right: Harjeet, Asha (sister), Avtar (brother)) 

Harjeet Singh Zhim was born on May 17, 1983, in Panama, Central America. His family migration to Panama dates back to the early 1900s, originating with work in the Panama Canal construction. His parents, Parkash and Sushila Singh Zhim raised him as a man of good, who valued his cultural and international heritage.

Harjeet and his daughter, Gracie.

Harjeet moved to the United States in 1998 and resided in San Jose, CA with his elder sister, Ashinder. He graduated from Silver Creek High School in 2000 and Heald College in 2003. Affectionately, he was also known as Panama to family and friends because of his interesting background. His ethnicity was Indian but he was born and raised in Panama. He was fluent in Spanish, Punjabi, and English and enjoyed the blend of Latin, Indian, and American cultures, including different music genres, among his favorites: Reggaeton, Bhangra, and Hip-hop, as well as, movies from Hollywood and Bollywood, and Punjabi and Spanish movies too. He adopted religious views from both oriental and occidental cultures, visiting Christian churches, Sikh gurdwara, and Hindu temples.

He was an entrepreneur, frequently trying new business ideas. His last initiative in the US was Oh Pizza & Wings in Dublin, CA, a restaurant he opened and managed with his cousin from 2015 through 2018 with original recipes starting from the dough and pizza sauce through the creation of many customers’ favorite pizzas, such as: chicken tikka, oh siracha, turken, and hot smokey chicken. Always providing the best customer service such that customers felt welcomed and enjoyed hosting events at the restaurant.

In 2018, he went to India, got engaged, and married to Sonia Chumber, following the Indian tradition of an arranged marriage. They had a beautiful baby girl, Gracie, in 2020. He temporarily moved back to Panama in 2019, where he was also loved and welcomed by family and friends and he continued to expand his network through his entrepreneurship. With his elder brother, Avtar, he managed a family-owned restaurant, Salsa Parrilla, sharing delicious Panamanian dishes with customers. 

He was a kind and gentle soul who brought joy, laughter, and warmth to all those around him. He was happy to babysit his nieces and nephews, as well as, family and friends’ pets, spending quality time with them and quickly becoming their favorite uncle and babysitter. He enjoyed hobbies such as installing music systems and being a DJ. He contributed to society by donating his time and resources to charitable organizations. During his life, Harjeet lived life to the fullest by traveling the world, befriending those he met, and creating amazing memories with all those he knew. He visited many countries following his passion to travel the world: Canada, Colombia, Dubai, Germany, India, Mexico, Dominican Republic, South Africa, and more. 

He passed on January 15, 2021, due to COVID complications. Harjeet’s good-hearted spirit and presence will live on through his wife and their daughter, who will turn one on February 20. If you wish support them, please visit: www.gofundme.com/panamasgracie

Ashinder Singh Zhim earned an A.A. from Florida State University, Panama Canal Branch, and a B.S. in Business with an emphasis in Accounting from San Jose State University. She is a CPA licensed in the state of California and works for a big four accounting firm in the Bay Area.

Kids show off their art on Zoom as Team Anti-Coronavirus.

Kids Make Art to Fund PPE for an Indian Hospital

Ten children from the ages of 3 to 13 based in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Jersey took to Zoom to organize and create Team Anti-Coronavirus. Their goal? To raise funds for Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for frontline medical professionals treating COVID-19 patients at the Christian Medical College and Hospital (CMC) in Vellore, South India. 

“I had a lot of fun making cards and artwork with my baby brother,” says Anoushka. “My dad is a doctor. I want to help other doctors like him and all healthcare workers who are taking care of COVID-19 patients.” 

Anoushka is collaborating with her teammates Advaith, Ilakkiya, Neil, Nikhil, Oviya, Pragnya, Prisha, Shreya, and Veera. The youngsters have raised $550 so far by making cards, wearable art, and shrinkable charms for family and friends in exchange for a donation to a Go Fund Me campaign launched by journalist Sujata Srinivasan, whose son is part of the group. Srinivasan was motivated to contribute following her personal experience at CMC when she lost her mother to a road accident in 2018. The initiative is a collaboration with the Vellore CMC Foundation in New York, which will route all donations, which are fully tax-deductible, to CMC Vellore.   

The award-winning, Indian nonprofit institution was in the U.S. news recently as a case study in the Harvard Business Review, and for work by one of its medical college alumni Dr. Ankit Bharat, chief of thoracic surgery in the Department of Surgery at Northwestern. Bharat and his team performed the first double-lung transplant on a COVID-19 patient in the U.S., after her lungs were damaged by the virus. 

As of Nov. 1, the Johns Hopkins COVID-19 tracker showed 8.1 million positive cases in India. The number of COVID-19 deaths that were reported totaled 122,111. CMC alone has a positivity rate of 16 percent, down from as high as 30 percent, according to Dr. Kishore Pichamuthu, professor and head, Medical ICU, Division of Critical Care at CMC. “We have 75 COVID ICU beds in six units. Around 1,000 critically ill patients with COVID have been treated in these beds since April 2020,” he says. 

From the data provided by CMC, of the total 9,072 COVID-19 patients admitted at the hospital, 91.6 percent were discharged (as of 28 Oct). A total of 3,135 patients received a subsidy for COVID treatment to date – the total charity amount was approximately $1.5 million.

Resources are strained as more patients continue to seek treatment.

“Patients are still coming in swarms to CMC, mostly because of the large number of COVID beds offered by the hospital,” says Dr. Pritish Korula, associate professor, Surgical ICU, Division of Critical Care. “Treatment for COVID is expensive. While our hospital does its best to help numerous socioeconomically-deprived patients, it has been a struggle to meet patient needs as the volumes are so large and the pandemic has been going on for so long.” 

To donate to CMC COVID-19 relief, please visit: Go Fund Me for PPE

Srishti Prabha is the Assistant Editor at India Currents and has worked in low income/affordable housing as an advocate for children, women, and people of color. She is passionate about diversifying spaces, preserving culture, and removing barriers to equity.

Indian Girls Are Making Masks Global

COVID-19 isn’t a test of whether we can fend for ourselves. Rather, it’s the story of those who choose to fight for the rest of us. And that’s precisely what a hundred young girls from Uttarakhand, India are trying to do — but they need your support. 

Since the coronavirus was declared a Public Health Emergency in January, countless medical facilities have struggled to accommodate the growing need for surgical masks. Hoarding, misinformation, and price gouging have all contributed to the scarcity of masks in hospitals. And while masks should be a priority for all members of society, it’s absolutely critical for medical professionals and sanitation workers, who are directly exposed to infected patients on a daily basis for hours at end. A single mask could break a chain of infections and hospitalizations before it even begins. According to the Mayo Clinic, masks have proven to filter out COVID-19 particles, thus protecting you from those infected but also allowing victims of the coronavirus to avoid infecting others. These girls know what’s at stake. 

That’s why Uttarakhand’s students, with the support of the non-profit organization Educate Girls Globally, have pledged to sew fabric masks and distribute them among communities in need. With nothing but their grit and their sewing machines, they have already brought a nascent change to their locale by providing a nearby hospital as well as the Uttarakhand Police Department with more than one thousand cloth masks. And that was all in a month’s work!

It was after a representative from Educate Girls Globally reached out to me that I realized the need more resources, attention, and support from the rest of the world. At a time when healthcare professionals are being forced to reuse existing masks, it’s crucial to encourage public movements that make more masks available. With the help of Educate Girls Globally, we started a GoFundMe account in hopes of scaling this endeavor to the international level. 

These funds will allow the girls to purchase additional materials, as well as transport these masks to healthcare facilities. More than twenty hospitals in the United States desperately need masks  — both  homemade and surgical — to protect caregivers, hospital visitors, and volunteers

These empowered young girls from Uttarakhand want to raise $25,000 to distribute more than 50,000 high-quality fabric masks to hospitals in the United States. They tell a story of perseverance amid immense adversity and fear. 

With your small financial contribution, we can give this story the ending it deserves.

To donate, click here.

Kanchan Naik is a junior at The Quarry Lane School in Dublin, CA. Aside from being the youth editor of India Currents, she is the editor-in-chief of her school’s news-zine The Roar. She is also the Teen Poet Laureate of Pleasanton and uses her role to spread a love of poetry in her community.

Local Teen Fundraises to 3D Print Face Shields

Aditya Indla is a Sophomore at Bellarmine College Preparatory in San Jose, CA. After realizing that healthcare workers are facing a severe shortage of protective equipment as they deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, he decided something needed to be done.

In collaboration with a researcher at UC Berkeley and Maker Nexus, he is planning to print hospital approved face shields and deliver them to the hospitals in need. He has created a gofundme page to help with the costs of creating the face shields.

Face shields are used by healthcare professionals to protect them when working with patients. Hospital supplies are running low. While they prefer to use commercially manufactured ones, during this emergency, they are looking for alternative sources.

The face shields cost $10 each to manufacture and his goal is to raise $3,000 to purchase the supplies to make 300 masks.

Please help support the healthcare professionals at the forefront of the COVID-19 fight by donating to his gofundme page!

Australia Fires Impact the Indian-Australian Community

The numbers are staggering, the pictures downright terrifying. More than two dozen lives have been lost, hundreds of properties destroyed, half a billion animals have perished, and more than twelve million acres have been burned in the ongoing Australian bushfire crisis, and – amazingly – it is only one month into the southern hemisphere summer. Pictures of rescued wildlife, videos of ‘firies’ (firefighters) driving through intense firestorms that generate their own weather phenomena and the ongoing discussions over the climate crisis have propelled this year’s Australian fire season onto the screens of those around the world who look on from a distance, aghast. Amidst this gloom, the Indian-Australian community has not been spared. 

Australia is home to a large number of people of Indian origin, including a large transient student population, with figures around 600,000 within a country of population of just under 25 million. Like large cities in the USA with a substantial number of Indian migrants, Sydney and Melbourne feature a huge variety of Indian food, along with hundreds of Indian cultural and religious organizations serving their local communities. One such center, which housed a temple complex and community care center or Sri Om Devi Brindhavan, was housed in Clarence, New South Wales. It could be found in the idyllic blue mountains just two hours drive west of Sydney and was operated by the Sri Om Care organization.

Sri Om Devi Brindhavan before the fire.

On the 21st December 2019, the forecast was grim. Sweltering conditions including high heat (well above 40C/104F) and extremely dry winds combined to make an already unstable fire situation that much worse. All the worst predictions of that day, unfortunately, came to pass. The Mt. Gospers fire in the Blue Mountains area razed through half a million acres of bush. Towards the afternoon, a change of wind direction caught those in Clarence by surprise, and the town came under a flying ember attack. Fire quickly swept through the tiny town in a matter of minutes, completely destroying many houses. Only a few survived, but the community center/temple was not one of them.

Remains of the building after the fire. The intense heat buckled the sheet metal, and caused gas cylinders to explode. Little was left.

The center had been used for religious gatherings, annadhanam (service of free food), yoga and meditation retreats, recreational and educational activities for the elderly population, and local wildlife care. The inferno ripped through quickly and within half an hour, the damage was done. It is estimated that the total bill for that one center alone will reach half a million Australian dollars. Thankfully, no lives were lost that day in Clarence, although others fighting the same fire were not so lucky, as we would come to learn later.  

In spite of all the difficulties, one of the amazing things about tragedies is the resounding community spirit in the wake of disaster. Abraham Lincoln said, in reference to troubled times, “The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion.” This seems more than apt. In this respect, the community is rising. The huge outpouring of support for those in Australia from around the world, be it from cricketers, movie stars, pop singers, and the general population, is heartwarming and uplifting. The energy of the community, to rebuild in the face of such tragedy, is invigorating. The issues we face are global, not local, and there are no borders for such disasters. It never happens to you – until it does. 

If you would like to donate to see the rebuilding of the community center mentioned in this article, a gofundme campaign has been started. 

Rama Vasudevan is scientist living and working in Tennessee, born in India and raised in Australia, who was heavily involved with Indian-Australian community activities before shifting to the US. He is a volunteer and one of the founding members of Sri Om Care.