Chitmu Village, Gopal Ananda Nagar, India
A new primary school has been started by Ananda Marga Gurukula in Chitmu Village in West Bengal, India. The school was started in February 2020 with about 50 children, and currently many more are waiting to join.
The educational township of Ananda Nagar (City of Bliss), was founded in 1962 to serve as a global eco-community. The site houses small poor tribal villages that benefit greatly from service-oriented projects such as this one.
As in other schools run by Ananda Marga Gurukula around the world, children learn English as well as their local languages, art, music, dance, math, agriculture, biology, yoga, and meditation. The aim is to develop the child’s full potential with love and respect, as each child is unique. Every human being deserves to have access to the minimum necessities of life: shelter, food, clothes, medical care and education
The infrastructure of the building is very basic, but a successful fundraising campaign has made it possible for it to be renovated soon with additional classrooms, bathrooms, and a playground. https://gofund.me/56be4378
This special school is an experimental project of Gurukula being run under the personal supervision of Ac. Shambhushivananda who spends three hours daily with the children. Two local teachers assist him. There are 54 children currently enrolled, ages 3-9 years, spanning preschool to grade 3.
The children engage daily in half an hour of yoga warmups and meditate for at least five minutes. They are learning how to play musical instruments, improving their conversational English, learning about local plants and their botanical names, and learning about animals and their sounds. They have learned over twenty songs of Prabhat Samgiita and how to say thank you in 25 different languages of the world, as well as a few sentences in Samskrta. The possibilities of learning are limitless. Other activities include theater, artwork, physical exercises and fun outdoor group games.