May is Older Americans Month – an observance that is led by the Administration on Aging, part of the Administration for Community Living (ACL). The theme for 2018 is ENGAGE AT EVERY AGE, which celebrates the way in which older adults make a difference in our communities whether it is by volunteering at hospitals, senior centers, marching in a…
Three mornings a week, Abu Sayeed, 64, wakes up in his home in Cyprus Hills in Brooklyn, NY, worrying about the subway. He wonders if he’ll manage get the right train? How long will he have to wait? As he gets ready for his long walk to the station – putting on a cap, a thick sweater, sports…
Salma Abdul1 was born and grew up in Bangladesh. Her children left for the US to study, then settled in the country as permanent residents. When her husband died, she found herself alone. Her children, unable to leave their lives in the US, but worried about her aging alone, asked her to come and join them in America….
1. India Home’s Executive Director, Dr. Vasundhara Kalasapudi, was named one of this year’s Top Influencer in Aging, by Next Avenue/PBS 2. Nargis Ahmed, India Home’s Desi Senior Center Director, won AARP’s Community Hero Award 3. We moved into brand new offices in Jamaica, Queens. 4. We got some great…
The elder patrons of our Sunnyside Center celebrated the end of their Drawing Workshop with an exhibition of their paintings at Jackson Diner in Jackson Heights, Queens. For eight weeks they had learned what Ebenezer Singh, the teaching artist leading the classes, called, “Pen and Ink Wash, Dry Pastel and Water Color techniques.” Classes taught by a professional artist Run…
India Home’s Desi Senior Center held a public reading at the center in Jamaica on December 11th, 2017 to celebrate the culmination of a writing workshop funded by Poets and Writers. Each member of the writing workshop read aloud from a piece written in the class. The classes were led by Sabbin Akhter, a teaching artist, originally from Bangladesh…
Rosa Mendonza is singing. The 86 year old doesn’t speak much English, so she decides to sing instead. Her beautiful, rich voice rises in long trills above the crowd in the bright room and and seems to set the very trees outside the windows quivering. The murmuring crowd falls silent as her voice fills the room. She stops. Her audience…
By Rohandeep Arora Outside the Sikh Gurudwara in Richmond Hill, Queens, I approached an older Sikh man with a turban and a long, flowing beard. “Hello, Uncle!” I said in Punjabi, my mother tongue. “Do you have a couple of spare minutes to fill out a survey on our research for the needs of the South Asian…
On July 27th 2017 our seniors from our Desi Senior Center went on a summer picnic to Boscobel House and Gardens in Hudson Valley. Described by Nelson A. Rockerfeller, then Governor of New York, in his keynote address at Boscobel’s opening celebration in 1961 as “one of the most beautiful homes ever built in America,” the house is…
India Home’s Dilafroz Nargis Ahmed has won AARP’s Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) Community Hero Award. The American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) created the award in 2016 to acknowledge the hard-working staff and volunteers of nonprofit organizations serving AAPIs age 50-plus. AARP is the largest membership organization in the United States with over 38 million members across the country. Nargis Ahmed,…