411: Hope Floats

India is approximately 7, 500 miles from here, but on August 18, a group of visually impaired students from Bangalore will bring their country’s issues straight to Hyde Park. Members of the Shree Ramana Maharishi Academy for the Blind, the students will perform a classical Indian dance at the annual Notes of Hope benefit concert, sponsored by Asha for Education. Beginning at 6pm in the International House at the University of Chicago, the two nonprofit organizations will team up for the first time, working together to not only raise money for the education of underprivileged children in India, but to showcase their talents as well. “The way they learn to dance is a really unique method called the ‘Touch and Feel’ method—the student is actually holding on to the teacher and experiencing the movement and then they perfect [it],” Notes of Hope coordinator Shankar Ramachandran says. Don’t call it all charity, however. “It’s not just charity,” Ramachandran explains. “It’s giving them avenues to [better] their lives and…get the resources to build their own communities.”