Our awareness cum celebration programs began with a press conference on the 15th of November at the Press Club, Mumbai. Much preparation went into this. After the press con we got articles in the Indian Express, Maharashtra Times and Sakal newspapers.
16th and 17th we had an awareness drive at Phoenix Mall. They gave us a place outside Croma to set up our table. Tamana, Christopher, Nikhil, Nitin, Kavita and Keyur did a good job of spreading awareness. Kavita as ususal was of immense help seeing that the infrastructure was in place.
On the 18th, our young dancers had their last practice and were all set for the celebration on the 19th.
The staff, food and hall were all excellent at Krishna Palace. 120 people were present at the celebration which began with a prayer by Kavita, followed by a welcome address by Dr. Singhal. Dr. Joy Desai then gave an informative and helpful talk on ‘Epilepsy & Teens’which is the theme for this year’s awareness drive. Carol D’Souza then spoke of the reason for the celebration E 40-20 i.e. 40 years of Indian Epilepsy Association and 20 years of Samman our epilepsy support group. Felicitations followed – Santosh Tholar and Keyur Vaghela received the Epilepsy Achiever’s Award and Sachin Khot received the Caregiver of the Year Award. Santosh had made a beautiful collage for Dr. Shah and an album of her journey from early days at KEM Hospital to date and Dr. Pravina Shah was felicitated and presented with these. The celebrations ended with a dance by Samman members and the rest of the audience joining them at the end. The evening ended with the sumptuous buffet. Look forward to many more celebrations …… Carol D’Souza