The Dream Voice (A virtual fundraiser organized by VIBHA in partnership with Shankar Mahadevan Academy and Anand Entertainment) -By Ruchi Iyengar & Seema Pillai

The online singing contest received an overwhelming response and immense love from across the globe. There were close to 400 entries that came in across all continents. The entries were divided into three categories: Little Champs (age 3 to 13 years), Teen Champs (13 to 19 years), and Super Champs (age 19 and above). The top 20 contestants were selected by our amazing preliminary round judges- Rekha Pallath, Sid Philar, Anamika Pal, and Ram Durvasula- were posted on the website. Votes poured in for the public choice awards. Another team of extremely talented judges, each of which has their mark in the music industry, came on board for the final judging: Bollywood/Playback singers Bhavya Pandit and Nihira Joshi, Indian Idol contest runner up Nitin Kumar, PVNS Rohit, also of Indian Idol fame, and International Pop Soul artist Avanti Nagral were the 5 who selected the winners. Shankar Mahadevan Academy also contributed to the judging.

On Sunday, June the 14th of 2020, was the climax, The Grand Finale of “THE DREAM VOICE”. The event had the flavor of a finale in every sense. Prabir Das and Ruchi Iyengar took us on a 2-hour- fun and entertaining journey which was shown LIVE on the Vibha YouTube channel and Vibha Facebook page. The channels had about 6000 views. Winners were announced in 3 groups – US, India and International for each of the Little champ, Teen champ and Super champ categories. People poured their love and votes for their near and dear ones for the Public Choice awards which was a separate category. There was a pledge drive during the finale and people pledged and donated generously. Everyone was blown away by the talent which they witnessed. There was some mesmerizing, spellbinding phenomenal singing by the contestants.The judges also spoke about their experience with the dream voice.

The India winners are being awarded with opportunities like singing for a VIBHA ad and the US winners will be sharing the stage with a celebrity in a Bollywood Concert which will be organized by Anand Entertainment.

Our heartfelt gratitude to- Our sponsor-Six Consulting, our partners-Shankar Mahadevan Academy, Anand Entertainment and Bytegraph Productions, our Co hosts- Heritage School of Performing Arts, Neeshon Radio, Harshad Raipure Films, Awesong.in, Gaata Rahe Mera Dil and Launchpad.

Last but not the least, the passion of VIBHA volunteers never stops to amaze us. They go above and beyond every single time. VIBHA raised a whopping amount of $31,000 dollars through this contest.

These funds raised will help Vibha support their projects in India and 20 percent of the funds will be directed towards the projects in the US which are also in the area of education of the underserved children.