Rajiv Malhotra – Head of Infinity Foundation, Princeton New Jersey, USA Donor of Serudur Tsunami Project

My reasons for selecting AIM for Seva over all other NGOs that I looked into are summarized as follows:

• I want a group that respects the native culture of the people rather than trying to use their distress to convert them, because such conversions especially under duress cause long term disharmony and breed divisions/clashes inside India. This alone disqualifies many prominent groups.
• The organization should have extensive experience in Indian village/tribal development projects, and should have established on the ground tsunami village adoption projects. AIM for Seva has many such tsunami projects. NRI communities in places like Allentown, Pa. have already adopted villages with them.
• Any US donor should have DIRECT access to the team doing work in India. I have personally called the AIM for Seva leadership in India and had instant access to them by phone. There is no bureaucracy in the middle.
• 100% of the funds donated should go to the village project – AIM for Seva has assured of this.
• People visiting India, or their kids wanting to do community service, should be able to go and get personally involved at their discretion. (One of the leaders of the AIM for Seva team in India is a young NRI second-generation woman in her 20s who was raised in the US, and who has relocated to India to work with this organization.)
• There should be a US based office directly involved in the project, which should be always approachable by us. Janet Falk who lives in Arsha Vidya Gurukulum, Pa., is the head of AIM for Seva in USA, and she will visit us in New Jersey to give a talk once we have the funds ready to give to her. Dr. Krishnan Ramaswamy, Long Island resident, has already helped raise significant funds from other NRI communities (for their own separate village adoption projects through AIM for Seva), and he will be present to explain AIM for Seva and its projects as well.
• I plan to visit their project once we have the funds raised, to not only offer my services but also to bring back a status report with pictures of the project.