Welcome to Shivalli Kutumba! This organization is for the Vipra community living in North America with ancestral roots in the former South Canara region in India. You can be a member as long as one of the family members meets this criterion and you believe in the goals and objectives of the Kutumba. You can speak the language that you are comfortable with and you don’t have to change your lifestyle to be part of the Kutumba.
When we came to this country, most of us left our parents, brothers, sisters and relatives back in India. That’s one aspect that we all miss here in North America. The key objective of the Kutumba is to bring our community together, create an extended family atmosphere and use that as an opportunity to nurture our culture and tradition. In addition, we would like to create a platform to give back to the community and give back to the society in general. From that perspective, with your help, we have been able to bring close to 500 families together in less than 6 months. The Kutumba is a not-for-profit organization. None of the board members or committee members get paid for their contributions towards the Kutumba. Please refer to the by-laws for the details.
We filled over 50 positions before and after the inaugural event during Ugadi. Working committee members, Board members, EC members, Committee chairs, Committee members, Honorary advisors, Chapter presidents etc. Everyone who volunteered to take up these roles are self-motivated, passionate volunteers who strongly believe in the objectives of the Kutumba. Six months ago, most of them did not know each other. However, they have come together and worked together to lay a strong foundation for the Kutumba. Some of them have spent an hour for Kutumba activities every single day. Collectively, so far, we have spent close to 5000 hours on Kutumba related activities.
We have a lot of talent in our community. All we had to do was to bring our people together. Rest of the things would happen on their own. That’s the assumption that we made when we laid the cornerstone for the Kutumba. When we look back, that’s exactly what happened during the past few months.
Ideas from the committee members, their efforts and your active participation is what helped us accomplish a lot during the past 6 months. We managed to put together the by-laws and register the organization. We had two national level virtual events, one to celebrate Ugadi and another one to celebrate Ashtami and Ganesha Chathurthi. We managed to raise 10,000 dollars to support the COVID relief fund, we conducted several workshops and educational sessions during summer, we conducted yoga classes, we conducted several Dharmika events in partnership with Sri Krishna Mutt, we organized competitions, we released first edition of the quarterly magazine, we created 15 chapters, we gave programs at an international event called NAVIKA, we had Chintana Mantana sessions, we conducted get togethers and picnics at chapter level. The list goes on and on. We are definitely off to a great start. Let’s keep up the momentum and work towards taking the Kutumba to the next level. This Kutumba is for you, it’s for us, it’s for the next generation (ನಿಮಗಾಗಿ. ನಮಗಾಗಿ. ಮುಂದಿನಪೀಳಿಗೆಗಾಗಿ). Let’s come together and work towards growing the family tree. The extended family tree. What you get from the tree and when you get them may vary, but I am sure as long as a we take care of the tree, we all will benefit from it.
Once again, I would like to thank each one of you for joining the Kutumba and helping us in our effort to bring the community together. We have interacted with most of you over zoom and google meets. We, the board members and committee members, look forward to meeting with you in person in the near future.
Thank you.
Warmest regards
Shrisha Jaiseethram
(Chairman)