Welcome to Anoopa's Friends and Family site. This site was set up for friends and family to share their thoughts and prayers for our wonderful friend Anoopa. Most people have been leaving messages here.
Anoopa's mom shared this note regarding Anoopa's case going to court beginning today in Ashland, Alabama.
Dear Friends and Family,
Please keep Anoopa and our family in your prayers. Dennis and I will be in Clay County courthouse in Ashland, Alabama during the week of Monday 28 January for the court proceedings. My sister and brother-in-law will be with us for support. It has taken almost three years to bring this case to court. That says something about the situation of legal affairs in Clay County.
Our attorneys tell us it is unlikely that the district attorney (DA) of Clay County will ever bring a criminal case against the defendant, Mr. Darren Smith, whose reckless driving caused the loss of our beloved Anoopa. That says a lot more about law enforcement practices in Clay County, Alabama.
We wanted to hold Mr. Smith responsible for his actions on highway 77 on the evening of 5 March 2005, and have him face the consequences of his high speed reckless driving. We do not expect much from this case; however we would like to see him do 200-400 hours of social service and donate part of his wages to Anoopa Sharma Children's Foundation. Social service at hospitals attending automobile accident victims will help him learn to respect laws of the road. It is our wish that neither he nor anyone else take another innocent life by driving recklessly, at excessively high speed, or under the influence of alcohol or drugs. We also wish to see Anoopa's dream of helping under represented young women around the world better their lives.
Your prayers and acts of kindness have been so important to us in the past, and we continue to be grateful for your concern and support. Please think of Anoopa and us and pray the lord to give us strength to face this difficult time.
With best wishes to all,
Anita
I'm so happy to share this update from Anoopa's dad Dennis Sharma and the on site manager for Anoopa's project, Mr. Arora.
From Dennis:
After over two years of hard work on the project, it's
so gratifying to see the results -- girls sitting in
front of computers and exploring ....... For those of
us who saw the school before the project started, we
feel a sense of real accomplishment. We are very lucky
to have found a good project manager in Mr. Arora. I
feel that Anoopa who double-majored in computer
science and biolgy would be very satisfied with this
progress. But more is needed. I will continue to help
the school in any way I can.
Thank you for your moral and financial support for
Project Anoopa.
And now the photos from Mr. Arora....
Dennis also found an old birthday card from Anoopa from 1999 when he was working in Honduras.
The card itself said on the outside, “We’ve both really grown over the years. You’ve grown wiser, more understanding, and tolerant.” And on the inside: “…and I’ve grown really proud to have you for my dad. Happy Birthday.”
Anoopa wrote:
Dear Daddy,
I have enclosed some pictures that were taken this summer. There is one of us and Gloria and Estefana at La Creperia, me and Uttama at Roatán, the view of the San Francisco Bay, including Alcatraz, a few of the Grand Canyon, one next to some Redwood trees, and then a few of Yosemite. The first one shows Half Dome, a famous site in
Yosemite which I hiked to the top of with some friends from the camp. Happy Birthday! I hope you are enjoying your time in and are having no regrets about taking the assignment. I’m looking forward to seeing you in October, but until then I’ll write you emails frequently and let you know how things are going. My work with OIT is going well and I’m learning a lot. I love you and want to wish you a very happy birthday.
Love, Anoopa XOXO
Anoopa's dad recently found a letter from Anoopa in a box of old papers. He wanted to share the letter, which she wrote to him just prior to her graduation from Duke in 2002. From Dennis:
The letter makes a very important point about Anoopa's very warm, kind and loving personality. Although she and I corresponded frequently by e-mails and talked on phone, she took the time and wrote to me about her true feelings. I enjoyed reading the card and the letter often even when she was present among us. Now that she is no more, these have become invaluable treasures.
Hope you all are o.k. and praying for her peace and
happiness... wherever she might be.
To view a larger version of the letter, click on the small image, then click on the full letter, and then zoom in on the full-size image.
I just realized a post I tried to make in December never went live. Apologies for the late news, but here it is!
In May a paper Anoopa wrote on her work in Bangladesh was published. You can find it on the Bio Info Bank Library, and here's the abstract:
Trop Med Int Health. 2006 May;11:757-64
The economic impact of visceral leishmaniasis on households in BangladeshAuthors: D Anoopa Sharma, Caryn Bern, Beena Varghese, Rajib Chowdhury, Rashidul Haque, Mustakim Ali, Josef Amann, Indu B Ahluwalia, Yukiko Wagatsuma, Robert F Breiman, James H Maguire, Deborah A McFarland
Summary Objectives To explore current patterns of diagnosis and treatment, quantify household economic impact and identify household strategies to cover the costs of visceral leishmaniasis (VL) care in rural Bangladesh. Method Structured interviews with 113 VL patients from 87 households documenting all provider visits and expenditures for health care for VL, and the ways in which the expenditures were covered. Results Patients paid a median of 7 visits to six different providers before beginning VL treatment. All visited the subdistrict government hospital at least once. While health care, including antileishmanial drug therapy, is officially available free of charge at government facilities, 79% of patients reported making informal payments for provider access, diagnostics and drug administration; only 14% of patients received their full drug course from this source. For the 58% of patients who purchased the full treatment course, drug cost constituted 34% of direct expenditure. Median direct expenditure for one VL patient was US$87 and median income lost was $40; median total expenditure was 1.2 times annual per capita income of our study population. Households employed multiple coping strategies to cover expenditures, most commonly sale or rental of assets (62%) and taking out loans (64%). Conclusions Visceral leishmaniasis treatment causes a major economic burden in affected families. Control strategies for VL should facilitate timely, affordable diagnosis and treatment of patients to decrease the infection reservoir and to alleviate the economic burden of VL on households.
Congrats, Anoopa!
For You I Never Met.
I read a story about a girl intent on saving the world But she only got a few years to visit, to hold children, to desire Justice and to muse while walking dusty village roads of her fathers people wondering if she could live the life She saw. I stared at photos of a girl brilliant and shining as the sun breaking barriers with her smile and spirit and restless hands bigger than the Taj Mahal. And now she makes me restless with my days and my faith and my understanding of things, but encouraged, inspired, moved to follow. I read a story about a girl I wish I had known. Jan. 13th 2007/Annonymous
The Atrauli School for Girls' new Anoopa Hall--a beautiful new space inspired, planned, funded, and built thanks to Project Anoopa--was inaugurated in December 2006. Anoopa Hall is huge and will be used in three ways: as a computer lab, a library, and an all-pupose meeting room. Project Anoopa also gave the school a new four faucet sink area for drinking water replacing an old handpump.
Anoopa's parents Dennis and Anita and her sister Uttama attended the dedication ceremony. 790 young female students and staff from the school also participated in the events. Dennis's sister performed the pooja and havan in front of the fire, and Uttama performed the tape cutting and unvieled a marble plaque hung in the Hall that reads, "In Memory of Anoopa Sharma, 7/9/1980-14/3/2005."
Most important, we want to thank all of you who helped us in this endeavor via prayers, well wishes, suggestions, time, efforts and generous donations. The next phase of the project involves installing collapsible walls to divide the space as well as building the library's collection and equipping the computer room with computers and furniture. Please keep memories of your dear friend Anoopa in your heart and help us keep this project on track. Your suggestions and support are always welcome.
--Anita Sharma
Uttama, Dennis, and Anita are traveling together to India this month to inaugurate the new facility at the Autrali School for Girls! Congratulations to all who helped make this project happen, from financial contributions to research and vision to construction and management!
There is still lots of opportunity for individuals or organizations to support the Anoopa Sharma Foundation's development project.
The first phase of Project Anoopa involved construction of a multi-purpose facility, providing the Autrali School for Girls new space for a library, computer room, and community meeting hall. The cost of this phase was about $34,000. As of about August, the total of all donations in the Anoopa Foundation account reached a bit less than $10,000. Work on the project is continuing strong thanks to the Sharma family's personal funds. Additional contributions are very welcome to help lower the family's costs.
Contributions go the furthest when made via check, sent directly to the bank or the Sharma's home. See details under Memorial Fund. Donations can also be made online via Paypal--there's just a percentage taken out of the contribution for the convinience of the Paypal transaction.
Best wishes to the Sharma's in their travels in India this month! We're looking forward to a report on your visit and the school.
Anoopa's poem, Living Bangladesh has been awarded third prize in the Ethnographic Poetry competition of the Society for Humanistic Anthropology. It is being published in the journal, Anthropology and Humanism, Vol 31, No. 2 (December 2006).
There will be an award ceremony at the American Anthropological Association meetings, in San Jose, CA, sometime between Nov 15 and 19 (exact timing TBA).
Thanks to Jed Stevenson for submitting Anoopa's poem to the competition, and congratulations to Anoopa!
We've fixed the video links. If you haven't seen these yet here's your chance.
Original:
Atlanta Fox 5, March 18, 2005
Follow-up story:
Atlanta Fox 5, May 5, 2005
Your donations are still needed. Thank you for your support!
