MANILA SECTOR
Let the Children have a Happy World!
NHE News from Vietnam
By Trần Thúy Ngọcc
Dana Winner has sung:
“Let the children have a world
where there is no pain or sorrow,
where they all can live tomorrow
and they share a brighter day.
Let the children have a world
where the people can be free,
where they all can join together
and their hearts will share a dream.”
To share this dream of a just and sustainable world, we have been doing some activities here in our efforts to expand the heart and free the mind for kids. Besides the annual celebration of the International Children’s Day on June 1st with Yoga for Kids, courses on Kids Yoga Teacher Training have been held at our AM Ho Chi Minh City Quarters from time to time for pre-school teachers. Some NHE aspirants have practiced their learning: Phạm Thị Hiếu Anh has been conducting a Kid Yoga class at “Kitty Kindergarten” as well as some training courses for interested students at “Yoga Daily Academy” in Ho Chi Minh City.
Phan Khanh Quỳnh and Nguyễn Thủy inaugurated their kindergarten “Chuyện Nhỏ” in Ho Chi Minh City last February.
Additionally, some charity services (cooking, donation, festivals …) have been offered regularly by AMURT Saigon to various poor orphanages in South Vietnam, such as Linh Quang Children’s Home (Xuân Lộc, Đồng Nai), Thiên Bình Orphanage (Biên Hòa), Từ Ân Orphanage (Bà Rịa – Vũng Tàu), Love School for Handicapped Children (Hòn Đất, Kiên Giang) …
Yes, to quote Dana Winner’s song again:
“There is a place for a child in your heart
as long as you still believe in a fairytale,
and always know, deep inside, we are all the same.”
we are searching for a child in our heart…
AMSAI Yangon Preschool Myanmar
The AMSAI Yangon Preschool has been running for 6 years. It is mainly for low-income families. Currently, it has 32 children aged 2 to 5 years old, and two t
eachers. The principal is Dada Divyasundara’nanda. The school is using the local curriculum with an NHE foundation including stories from the YES manual, regular kiirtan, meditation, and asanas.
On April 12, they had the Burmese new year celebration, locally called the “water festival” – the biggest festival in Myanmar. They had a new year’s party celebration in the school, with the children doing free dancing, singing together and making sweets together. This week long holiday is maybe the happiest time for Myanmar people.
GEORGETOWN SECTOR
Argentina
Ánanda Náráyańa Project,
By Kuntur Deva
We have already entered in our fifth year of the project of harvesting day by day the fruits of those good seeds that were sown making a dream become a reality. Among some of the latest occupations and engagements, as well objective achievements, the following are of greater relevance:
Public talks
Several public programs were given in various Argentinian cities in Córdoba and San Luis provinces that include presentations about the purpose of a MU combined with Chinese Medicine Health Concepts and Yoga as a Lifestyle.
New construction
After 8 long months of intense work setting up the main structure and roof of our new building, we have finally completed an important part. We can now continue making the walls and organize the spaces where a laboratory will be located to continue producing natural medicine and the distilling of essential oils.
Family programs
This summer we began a new program focused on the inclusion of family members in yoga, meditation, healthy food habits, and moving together activities, welcoming 23 families throughout these blissful months of sunshine, blue sky and flower blooming.
Social Service
Together with members of the Organic Market we visit regularly an Elderly’s Home located in Villa General Belgrano town where we sing kiirtan, practice simple exercises and have time to listen to and share inspiring stories.
NAIROBI SECTOR
Update from AMNHA, Ho Ghana
By Dada Mahaprajinananda
After years of preparation and a gradual construction of the building, the Ananda Marga Neohumanist Academy began serving the community of Ho, Volta Region, in September 2016. We opened with just a handful of children but our well equipped Creche/Nursery/KG, good intentions, positive spirit, and dedicated staff impressed the local people.
We now have 110 children admitted. Parents have asked us to expand into higher classes and though it is a great challenge, we aspire to rise to the occasion.
We’ve submitted to the District Assembly architectural drawings that include a two story structure of eight additional classrooms, toilet and urinal block, and all necessary facilities. An initial inspection has been made. Our target is to add at least one additional classroom each year.
In late November, 2018 our dynamic sister Nadia Rabah from Lebanon came for one month to share her many skills and years of experience. With Nadia’s very capable guidance, the head teacher and her teaching staff increased their knowledge and appreciation of the basics of NHE and learned many more creative classroom interventions.
The daily routine now includes a quiet time circle. Basic yoga-based exercises are done by the children, and more artwork as well.
While in Ghana, Nadia met with the school’s PTA, made contacts with the Lebanese business community, and also conducted training and programs at the Lotus Centre in Accra managed by Didi Ananda Gunamaya. Her visit and work has made a lasting impression and put the growing school on a more firm NHE footing.
The school staff in Ho, and those at other Ananda Marga schools in Ghana, will greatly benefit from additional training in NHE and related skills.
If you are available to visit and assist with teacher training, preferably for a minimum 1 month, please contact Dada Mahaprajinananda: .
Update on Lotus Children Center, Accra, Ghana
By Didi Ananda Gun’amaya’
At our school we have regular teacher training. We focus on moral principles weekly. Although Ghanaian people are quite religious, mostly they go to church in search of miracles, but learn little or nothing about moral principles. It is important for our teachers to understand those principles. Usually they get very inspired in our sessions as there is an innate flow of love for God in the human heart. Still many dogmas bind their minds so we work on opening their minds and hearts.
In our training sessions, teachers bring their own words to express various attributes related with a moral principle. Then they try to explain how they would teach those attributes to the children.
The staff of Lotus is from our local community which is still underdeveloped. People do not have a habit of reading books, especially women. Thus we encourage them so that they can express their own ideas in these subtle subjects.
Mandala-art, cooking and playing were part of the teachers training during the last Xmas holidays. These activities help to create unity among the teachers and expand their creativity. Some of them have never cooked before and were given the main duties of cooking
Service Activities at Lotus
As we plant seeds in the mind of very young children the sprouts and fruits do not belong to us. It is something to ripen and bear fruit in the future. However, among the adults, we can see how the local people can get influenced quickly by the nobility of high ideals. “Service to Humanity is Service to God” is one of these. We have been training our teachers in the principles of NHE, not only in theory but also in practice. For example as promoting the spirit of service, we brought our teachers to distribute clothes to a poor in the village.
Pictured here, Festus Tandoh, an ex-teacher of ours who left years ago to enter in the caeer of footballer, gathered his friends to donate needful stationary and toiletries to the school. Through a quiz they also reminded the kids of how important hygiene is. Everyone got prizes.
HONG KONG SECTOR
NHE Activities in Taiwan – by Geeta Li
Family Yoga Day
Health Class
Parents Seminar
The 7 steps to be Wisdom Teachers
Dada Shambhushivananda gave a class on Wisdom Teachers which included these seven steps:
- Bhiksa-cultivating gratitude
- Diksa-initiation
- Shiksa- education
- Samiksa- self reflection
- Pariks’a- test
- Pratiks’a- patient waiting
- Pratis’ta- establishment in the goal – attainment
DELHI SECTOR
Ethnobotany and Important Herbaria of India
Training Course, Gwalior, India, March 12-16, 2019
A five day training course on ‘Ethnobotany and Important Herbaria of India’ was conducted by Dr. Vartika Jain at Gwalior, India. Dr. Vartika told that study of all kinds of relationships existing among people and plants is called Ethnobotany. Urban people do possess immense knowledge about plants and man-plant relationships in urban environments are studied under a new academic discipline termed “Urban Ethnobotany”. Dr. Jain has initiated research in this area and reported interesting results obtained in a case study done on some prominent temples of Udaipur city in Rajasthan. She elaborated the concept of traditional as well as non-traditional botanical knowledge and also discussed future dimensions of this research in India along with highlighting methodologies of studying urban botanical knowledge. Dr. Vartika said that although UBK (Urban Botanical Knowledge) is mostly considered as non-traditional that is not always the case, as there are some elements of traditions present in urban communities that are linked to botanical knowledge such as culinary knowledge of a migrant population in cities.
In a second lecture, Dr. Jain revealed that there are 97 herbaria in India and among them the Central National Herbarium of BSI, Kolkata, Forest Research Institute, Dehradun and CSIR-National Botanical Research Institute, Lucknow, are India’s largest herbaria helping in identification of unknown plant specimens. Dr. Vartika also emphasized the role of herbaria as a tool of ethnobotanical studies and the importance of physically visiting live herbaria rather than virtually visiting in today’s digital era. Dr. Vartika Jain is emerging as a budding scholar in this field and widely solicited for lectures on this subject by different institutions.
Uma Nivas Update
Uma Nivas is a unique place – its name means “The Abode of the Divine Mother”. It is an area of several square kilometers spanning over a dozen impoverished tribal villages. This place was chosen by Shrii PR Sarkar in 1978 to be the global seat of the Women’s Welfare Department of Ananda Marga. Uma Nivas is foremost a community service project with 7 primary schools, a Girl’s High School, clinics, farms, a Music College and now a Women’s College under construction.
Uma Nivas, encompasses all that lies in the essence of its Tantric nature – the deep silence of the ancient barren hills of Rarh, a mystic place of contemplation of saints and sages, the sweet fragrant air of spring, the orange palash blossoms, the unbroken song of birds… mingling with the early chanting that flows into songs, music and chatter of learning of hundreds of children and teenage girls in several scattered compounds …
“Beyond the periphery of material mobility, there is the world of aesthetics; and above it, beyond it, there is the world of mystics. The world of mystics and the world of aesthetics are for human beings. And each and every human being should get a proper chance, should get adequate chance, to move into those worlds.” – Shrii P. R. Sarkar
Uma Nivas is a perfect place of aesthetics and mystics that Shrii PR Sarkar talks about. It is the fusion of nature, life and people. It has still of course a lot of scope for building on in every way and that is the reason we are here.
Our construction of the Women’s College and a model Primary School is progressing with the help of your kind and generous donations. It is a creation of compassion, a continuous inspiration to bring it to its completion for the meaningful purpose of serving many more children, girls, women, families and the community as a whole to live in healthy cooperatives.
Make Uma Nivas as part of your destination on your next trip to Ananda Nagar, Rarh. You can follow us and send your contributions to us on umanivas.weebly.com Thank you !
Didi Anandarama