An elegant fundraiser and miles to go

Posted on November 30, 2025 by beenasarwar

Sharing a report about a lovely event to benefit Sapan News, started on a voluntary basis in August 2021. Since becoming a member of professional journalist bodies like INN since2023, Sapan News is eligible to join NewsMatch, a fund that supports 475+ nonprofit newsrooms across the USA. Generous guests that evening contributed for a total of $6K. We need $1,500 more by ‘Giving Tuesday’, Dec. 2, to reach $7,500. The year-end goal is $15K. To help out, please go to this link or click the button below.

Donate now

PRESS RELEASE

Fundraiser for a Southasian nonprofit newsroom at a Boston photography museum 

BOSTON: The third Sapan News year-end fundraiser kicked off in the Boston area with a gathering over drinks, dinner, art and music at the quaint Griffin Museum of Photography in Winchester MA, the hometown of the event host Tasneem Chipty.

The Griffin Museum of Photography: A picturesque venue. Photo: Beena Sarwar

Chipty, a well-regarded antitrust economist, has hosted house parties at her own home over the past two years to raise support for Sapan News when the Southasia-focused syndicated features service first began fundraising in 2023. 

What drew her to the cause, she said in her introductory remarks, was the organization’s commitment to building bridges in a fractured world. To elevate the fundraising event, she chose the Griffin, founded by Arthur Griffin, a 1930s’ photographer for the Boston Globe and photojournalist for Life and Time magazines.

Sapan News began as a voluntary media outlet in August 2021, sending out syndicated features to other media outlets around the globe in an effort to amplify the cause of peace, dialogue and collaboration.

Continue reading →

Filed under: Media, Southasia | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

To be hopeful in bad times…

Posted on November 23, 2025 by beenasarwar

“TO BE HOPEFUL in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, and kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places — and there are so many — where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.” ― Howard Zinn

This quote at the end of an email from the great broadcaster David Barsamian of Alternative Radio is from Howard Zinn’s collection of essays published in, ‘A Power Governments Cannot Suppress’ (City Lights Books, 2007) and also published on ZNet as “The Optimism of Uncertainty.”.

Thought to share here. Salute, Howard Zinn. Salute, David ji. And revisiting my precious meeting with Howard Zinn in Cambridge MA some years ago, thanks to the wonderful filmmaker B.J. Bullert in Seattle WA.

Howard Zinn: from Pakistan with love and respect

Filed under: Art and activism, Progressive politics | Tagged: , , , , , | Leave a comment »