Congratulations to Shubhakar-anna and the New Jersey BANA team for a fantastic job in organizing the biannual BANA convention. It was very refreshing to see so many young families and youngsters attending the convention and enjoying the company of their friends and family at this awesome event!
I have humbly accepted the nomination, as the BANA President for the two-year term 2009 – 2011, by my beloved community members. I take this responsibility very seriously and I am blessed to have a hardworking and committed executive team, excited regional representatives and enthusiastic Washingt%on, D.C. host families, whom I can count on to shoulder this responsibility with me.
As the President of BANA, I will be leading the efforts aimed at increasing the focus on charitable work with active programs to support the welfare of the underprivileged in India. As a non-profit organization, I believe that we can and should motivate and steer our community to support charitable programs via BANA. Collectively as a community we could make a difference supporting worthy causes. I will set forth more details about this endeavor in future BANAVANIs.
I am also committed to keeping our youth involved in BANA. The future of our organization will depend on our success in getting and keeping youngsters and young families involved. In an effort to encourage and cultivate leadership, we are creating a new “Regional youth representative” position to represent the interest of youth in BANA affairs. They will work closely with the regional reps and the Executive team to serve as a link to the future. Let us all make a conscientious effort in encouraging our youth to get involved in our community affairs. The best place to start is in our own homes – we can start with simple things such as teaching our children our mother tongue and sharing our values, traditions and culture.
My sincere thanks and appreciation to NJ executive team and the committee members for taking care of all the details involved in transitioning BANA to Washington, D.C. in a timely manner.
We are very excited about hosting the 2011 biannual convention in Washington, D.C. and look forward to your attendance and participation – in order to help make this event a grand success. We encourage your active participation in our community affairs and greatly appreciate your ideas and suggestions in realizing our mission to build BANA into a strong, united organization to serve useful, social and philanthropic needs of our community.
Wishing you all a very happy Diwali filled with joy, prosperity and peace.
Satish S. Shetty
BANA President, Washington, D. C.