Shireen Mansoor was born in 1949 in Bogra village in, what was then, undivided Pakistan. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding leader of Bangladesh and its first President, was a cousin. Perhaps that’ is why the revolutionary spirit burned bright in her. From a young age she broke with tradition, went to college and became one of the few women in the country with…
April 3, 2016 – India Home is happy to be back at the SNAP Center of Eastern Queens providing culturally competent services to South Asians seniors in the neighborhood. India Home first started its Wednesday program at SNAP on April 16th, 2008. We took a brief hiatus, and it is only fitting that we return to SNAP in the month of…
On March 21st, India Home celebrated a birthday. We turned seven at our Sunnyside center! We started the Monday program at Sunnyside Community Services on March 23rd, 2009. We could talk about the social, psychological, recreational and healthcare programming that we’ve concentrated our efforts on; or how the nonprofit has grown – from one center with 10 initial members…
India Home is on the ground every program day dealing with the unique concerns of our community of immigrant seniors. We know their needs. We understand their anxieties. We speak their language and our seniors talk to us. We know the trouble our seniors have with the lack of good transportation options or the difficulties they have accessing case management…
For us at India Home, March has been a month for advocacy on behalf of our seniors. Dr. K and Meera from India Home went back at City Hall on March 9th to advocate for more funding for Asian Americans (yes, we fall under that umbrella). The advocacy day was organized by the Coalition for Asian American Children & Families…
About 65 years ago, the young people of Bangladesh rose up to demand that Bangla be one of the official languages of, what was then, East Pakistan. Students marched in the streets, peacefully protesting for the right to their own language. On February 21, 1952, in an incident that would change the course of the protests, the police shot dead marching students from…
Dr. Vasundhara Kalasapudi, the Excecutive Director of India Home, met with New York’s First Lady Chirlane McCray, to advocate for better senior services for South Asians on January 19, 2016. The First Lady met with leaders from Asian American community organizations to talk about ThriveNYC: A Mental Health Roadmap for All, a plan of action that will help the city…
Susanna Pereyra of Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs (MOIA) visited India Home’s Desi Senior Center on Thursday, February 4, to talk about how citizenship rules were different for older immigrants. Some Exceptions Those who are 50 years old or above at the time of filing for naturalization and have held a green card for 20 years are exempt from the…
India Home’s seniors became stars of DFTA’s popular campaign called Stylin’ Seniors. They were even featured on DFTA’s masthead for a whole week. Then today, DNAinfo did a feature on us saying: “Ten seniors volunteered to take part in the photo series, some dressing in traditional clothing. India Home provided a makeup artist and DFTA’s photographer, Richard Henry, took…
In this regular feature we interview our seniors for insights into the life they’ve lived. This month we talked to Mr. T.D. Chawla. T.D. Chawla is 98 years old. Yes, two years short of a century. He has experienced some of the great historical events of the past years : the British Raj, the Partition of the Indian sub-continent, the World…