MANHATTAN BEACH, Calif. — Sixteen-year-old Priyanka Ghosh Choudhuri, with help from her friends and family, organized a cultural event here Sept. 23 for the benefit of ‘The Samburu Project’ to build a well to provide clean water for a community in Samburu, Kenya.
‘The Samburu Project’ is a grass roots non-profit organization, headquartered in Los Angeles, whose goal is to provide people in a village of Kenya, called “Samburu,” access to clean and safe drinking water.
They do this primarily by building water wells.
Since 2005, the organization has drilled 100 water wells in Samburu.
The Indian American student became involved with “The Samburu Project” charity in 2016 through an annual event called “Walk for Water,” according to a press release.
Since then she joined the charity’s awareness club in her high school, called TRIBE.
She actively helped with all Samburu events through freshman year and sophomore year, including walking door to door in her neighborhood to raise funds.
The venue was decorated to allow the guests to visualize how water is transported from the wells to the people’s homes in Samburu, including handicrafts available for purchase made by the people there.
After a brief presentation by the executive director of the charity, the audience was shown a short video shot in Samburu this summer.
The featured highlight of the evening was Rabindra Nath Tagore’s famous Bengali dance drama “Chandalika,” with Choudhuri playing the part of Chandalika, a young untouchable girl.