About IDE | Activities | Database | Schools | IDEC | Links | Forums Tickets to India Hello Folks Sorry for all the delay for not posting information about IDEC 2004 India. Last Monday, I got an offer of sponsorship from a college in Bhubaneshwar that is interested in starting a training centre for teachers & later a school. They are very happy to sponsor the conference here in Bhubaneshwar, so after correspondence with Jim & Buddha Smiles and also with David Gribble & Jerry we felt it is best that the conference be held in Bhubaneshwar where there is sponsorship available. I also live in this city, so it would be easier for me to work from here to organise and lead the team. The dates for the conference are the same, Fri 3 Dec to sun 12 Dec 2004. Thanks for all your patience. The website will be up soon, now that things have been decided. I am meeting others to form a team of people who can take on various responsibilities. I don't think NCACS is the official sponsor for IDEC 2004. We have not had discussions about it but I will be more than happy if they would help the conference in any way that they can.There is a possibility of UNICEF helping with the conference too, now that it is going to be in Bhubaneshwar. The closest international airport is Kolkata (known as Calcutta earlier). This would take about an hour. But Bhubaneshwar also has daily flights from Delhi & Mumbai (earlier called Bombay). The flight from both these places would take about two hours. Trains are of course available and some of you may enjoy a day train from Kolkata that takes about 6 hrs. The accomodation available will be a range from the college hostel on site, to other hostels in nearby management & training institutes, to hotels to home stay with families. The website will have a form that will give you the rates (home stay will be free) & ask for your preference. The costs for the conference, let me work it out with the others before I give you any figure. During the conference we will organise visits to project sites where you could see work with the village children & their communities. If some of you want to make little longer trips, you can visit the projects either before or after the conference. I could organise visits around any of the cities that you may fly through too. If you have a stopover in Delhi, you could visit a school/project/NGO that is doing interesting work in Delhi or nearby. It is a good time in the year, so we could also visit a nearby forest and/or the largest brackish water lake in Asia where there are millions of migratory birds that fly in at that time of the year. A lot of possibilities, but just give me a few days to get my act together for the website and have discussions with the team that I need to put together now. There are many who want to help including children of all ages. Bye for now. You will be hearing a lot from me or from the organising team over the next few months. Amukta Amukta Mahapatra amahapatra@unicef.org 3, Ratnakar Bagh I Tankapani Rd Bhubaneshwar 751 018 Orissa. India Tel: Res: 91-674-2436896 Mobile: 91-674-3217080 Off: 91-674-2403977-80 Fax: 91-674-2403976 91-674-2430904 home