Welcome to the online home of Friends of Kolkata Australia, an incorporated, not-for-profit body formed in 2004 by volunteers. We are still entirely volunteer run and welcome new volunteers! We are a Melbourne-based organisation that arranges fundraising and educational activities on behalf of the Institute of Social Work (ISW), a non-government organisation in Kolkata, India. ISW seeks to protect childrens and womens rights by providing communities with access to education, vocational training, microcredit and health services, and by assisting women and children affected by family violence.

Thank-you to everybody who attended our film screening, we raised almost $500, if you haven't yet seen the film it is highly recommended, by us and David and Margaret.

The Waiting City tells the story of a young Australian couple (Joel Edgerton and Rahda Mitchell) who travel to India to collect their adopted child. Finding on arrival that the arrangements from the agency have yet to be finalised, they are left to wait in a foreign, exhilarating city, where the colour, chaos and culture shock test the vulnerability of their love. 

The film has received excellent reviews- and we’d love to have you see it with us while raising money for an important cause!

Friends of Kolkata is a Melbourne-based NGO that provides funds and support for the Institute of Social Work in Kolkata. Together, our projects help to improve the lives of those living in poverty- in particular, giving girls and women opportunities for education, financial independence, and freedom from domestic violence. You can read more about what we do at www.friendsofkolkata.org

Tickets are $20, and the funds we raise will go directly towards our projects in Kolkata.

Tickets must be pre-booked by Wednesday the 28th of July, for more information please email info(AT)friendsofkolkata.org

Over February and March 2009, six Friends of Kolkata volunteers led by two intrepid Friends of Kolkata volunteer leaders journeyed to Kolkata to participate in six weeks of community development work with past and present partner organisations. Equipped with a wide variety of skills and interests, the volunteers took part in diverse projects – from surveying the women’s shelter site to making didgeridoos and from painting banners of future dreams to running photography workshops.

Here, in the first of a series of stories that account their adventures, is the narrative of a scrumptious cooking project.