The artists from Sunadha Cultural Group performed

         dances and music at the Labouisse Hall in UNICEF House in  

         New York City. They were invited to perform at the UNICEF by  

         Global Partnership on Children with Disabilities (GPcwd) and the  

         UNICEF. Many dignitaries in various fields attended this event

         and made it a great success.

              Sunadha Cultural group is comprises of young dancers,

          musicians, and other kinds of arts and the specialty and

          importance of the group is that all of them are either blind, deaf

          or have other kinds of disabilities. Sunadha artists performs various

          forms of Indian classical and traditional dance forms, now expanding to

             theatre, singing, mimicry and so on.

          Currently the Sunadha Cultural Group is on a Cultural

 Tour in USA and UK and they are performing at various

 venues in USA and UK with the vision of raising awareness about

the abilities of the people with disabilities and to build networks

amongst the friends and supporters around the world.

   Sunadha is an integral part of the Samarthanam Trust

for the Disabled, a unique organization addressing the needs of the Visually impaired, Deaf and people with other kinds of physical challenges. Samarthanam works for creating a just world where everyone is treated well with equal opportunities, without any kind of discriminations and this group is committed to empower the underprivileged people and make sure they are also receiving a fair treatment from the main stream of our society.

          The names of the artists are Lingaraj (Visually challenged), Suma B.D (Visually Challenged), Suma Shivkumar

(Speech & Hearing impaired), Sridevi (Speech & Hearing impaired), Manasa Venkatesh (Speech& Hearing impaired), Jayalaxmi (Visually challenged), Usha (Visually Challenged), Virdraj/John (Visually challenged) and Balasubramaniam

(Visually Challenged).

              At this occasion the members of Samarthanam Trust for the disabled wants to express their sincere thanks to the UNICEF, Global Partnership on Children with Disabilities (GPcwd), The Government of India and it’s embassies in USA and UK, all the sponsors, well wishers and all those who attended this event at the UNICEF.

            Besides the staff and members of the UN there were many

distinguished guests at this event. Names of some of them are  

Gopal Mishra (The Program Specialist, Children with dis-abilities

in the Program division at UNICEF), Anna Burlyaeva-

Norman(UNICEF), Sunish Gupta (Executive Director, Samarthanam

USA), Manya Naidu (Indian Film Actress), Subo Kota (President,

Samarthanam USA), Shivaraman (Indian Film Actor and

Director), Vasanthi, Megha Kalia, Pomela Suri (President,

Spice-Indian Club, UN Staff Recreation Council) and Aroon

Shivdasani (Indo-American Arts Council),

       The dances were choreographed and trained by Kusum, Amrutha Rajendran and Gunjan Lahoti. They also performed at the event.

            Renee Mehrra and crew (ITV), Peter Ferreira (Parikh Worldwide Media) and Jose Pinto Stephen (Freelance Journalist) covered the event for the media.

          After the event at the UNICEF, Manya Naidu received the

Sunadha Cultural Group at her home and fed them with self-cooked delicious meal. Pria Chouhan also joined this gathering and served the team some snacks from her restaurant Desi Galli.

          To know more about Samarthanam Trust for the Disabled, Please visit 

             http://www.samarthanamusa.org/