FIRST
SLUM VISIT- 22/8/2010:
v Our
first slum visit was undertaken by the Youth for Dharma Team on 22nd
August 2010 to Anjaneya Nagar Slum.
v A
team of 18 members reached the slum on that day and split ourselves into 3
teams, each consisting of 5 members.
v We
went to each and every house in the slum, interacted with them for few minutes
and gave them prasadam, dollars, Muruga photos and “Nattrunai” book.
v We
also invited them to a temple located in their slum for a small session.
v We
people gathered there, we conducted a small bhajan session for one hour and
asked them to participate.
v Sri.
Prabakar, Treasurer of Dharma Rakshana Samiti gave a small talk in Telugu about
the basics of hindu way of workship and other day today activities.
v Inspite
of heavy rain, reasonable number of people gathered there and participated in
the session.
v There
were all very happy and left home with a contented mind.
v Our
slum visit was followd by various activities of DRS like Thirupathi kalyanam,
Sanyasi Yathirai, Saraswati nama jebam and Vilakku pooja which has made a great
impact.
v Now
Anjaneya nagar slum dwellers regularly attend all our DRS activities.
INTELLECTUAL SESSION-12/09/2010:
v An
intellectual session was organized on 12th September 2010 at P.S.
Senior Secondary School Mylapore.
v The
session started at 4.00 p.m with a guided meditation conducted by Sri. Bijju
Dev.
v Followed
by this powerful start, Shri. Aravind Nilakandan gave a detailed talk on Temples covering their
history, art and other scientific facts related to that.
v He
shared with us a very informative presentation about the temples.
v He
explained so many unknown facts with respect to the manner of construction of
temples which were highly informative.
v Though
the session was on continuos holiday and a rainy day, a good number of people
turned up.
v They
also gave valuable feedback about the session.
FIRST TEMPLE CLEANING- 2/10/2010
v Temple
Cleaning is one of the activities which is undertaken to make the youth and temple goers understand the importance of temple, the purity
and the importance of maintaining them clean.
v We
take a medium sized temple in any semi developed are slum area and cleam them
completely.
v This
was organized on 2nd October at Muchandhi Vinayaka temple,
Kakkan Colony, Nungambakkam, near Valuvar Kottam.
v A
team of 12 assembled and cleaned the
temple completely .
FIRST
GUIDED MEDITATION AND STRESS MANAGEMENT PROGRAM:
v This
activity was conducted by Sri. Bijju Dev on 12th December 2010 at
P.S. Senior Secondary School Mylapore.
v The
session started at 10.30 am with a good number of people though it rained
heavily.
Initially the program started with Guided meditation and followed by chanting
‘Aum’
v Then
Sri Bijju ji gave a talk on managing
stress and taught simple easy ways to overcome stress.
v It
was followed by a brief introduction on Yoga and few simple Yoga Asanaas were
taught which could be practiced through our daily chores.
v This
session brought a lot of relief to all the youngsters who were under stress and
appreciated a lot.
SECOND HINDU SERVICE
AND SPIRITUAL FAIR-25/01/2011 -30/1-01/2011
v This
was one of the biggest initiatives that have made a lot of impact in the minds
of the people.
v The
hindu Service and Spiritual fair was organized by Global Foundation for Civilizational
Harmony, where more than 100 Hindu Organisations took part by establishing
their stalls and explaining their service rendered to this society.
v Youth
for Dharma started its part in this part right from its inauguration. A team of
Youth for Dharma members performed the invocation song on stage.
v We
had a separate stall for Youth for Dharma.
v We
displayed various videos which explains the significance of Hinduism and so
many high value information advocated by it.
v We
also distributed various items like, OHM pendants, Rudrakshas, DVDs containing informative videos, A
compilation of high value information, various books of Swamiji, etc.
v We
also offered some Voice of India and SJM books for sale at a discounted price.
v The
response we got for our stall cannot be expressed merely by words.
v So
many youngsters came and expressed their willingness to participate in our
activities. More that 250 people registered with us as members.
v Elders
too showed so much interest to know about us and showered us with blessings.
INTELLECTUAL SESSION-06/02/2011:
v The
impact that was made by us in HSSF created lot of expectation about us in the
minds of the people which posed an obligation upon us to conduct the best
program post HSSF.
v We
met out the obligation by conducting an intellectual session on 6th
February 2011.
v Swami
Suddhananda gave a priceless discourse which hit the Bull’s eye.
v His
excellent choise of words, the way of presentation and above all his sense of
humour, glued the audience to their seat.
v Senior
Advocate G.Rajagopalan chaired the function and gave a piece of advice for youth today.
v This
was a fantastic session which impressed the people who attended the program a
lot.
FOURTH HOSPITAL VISIT- 20/02/2011:
v A
hospital visit was conducted on 20th May 2011 at Kanchi Kamakodi
Child Trust
Hospital.
v The activity was planned in a very short time
of 2 days and short notice was given to people.12 People participated in the
visit.
v As
usual we made ourselves into 3 teams and went to each and every bed and visited
patients.
v We
spoke with them as their family member and gave prasadams and promised to pray
for them to get well soon.
v We
had a small meeting outside the hospital premises and discussed bout the
activity.
v We
stepped out of the hospital with complete satisfaction.
SPIRITUAL
CAMP -12/03/2011 to 13/03/2011
v The 2nd Spiritual Camp
was held on 12th and 13th March 2011 at at Swami Suddhananda Foundation for
Self-Knowledge, Uthandi, East Coast Road, Chennai. 22
v Swamini Pramananda
Saraswati of Purna Vidya presided over the camp.
v The first session of
the camp commenced with a Prayer recitation and an introduction about Purna
Vidya Gurukulam. It was followed by various sessions conducted by
Swamini Amma covering various aspects of Purna Vidya like, Prayers,
Story-telling, games and Bhajans etc.
v The
second day of the camp started with at 7.A.M with an enlightening session by
Swamini Amma about Samskritis (Culture and Tradition) and Prashnottaris(FAQs).
v That was
followed by an interesting activity where the participants were asked to teach
the gathering for 5 minutes each about any topic in Purna Vidya. The session
was very interactive and everyone did their best in taking purna vidya class in
the given time
v Swamini
Amma gave valuable feedback to everyone and distributed Purna Vidya books to
the participants. Also the participants were allowed to ask their doubts and
interact with Swamini Amma.
v The
evening session of that day was presided over by Swami Sudhanandha, who gave an
enlightening address to all of us.
v An
interesting book called “Ari se Arjuna” written by David Frawley was
distributed to all the participants.
v At the
end of the day, all the participants left with complete satisfaction.
v They were
very happy about learning the glorious aspects of Hinduism and receiving the
blessings of Swamini Amma and Swami Sudhanandha.
WHAT
IS SUCCESS?- WORKSHOP-03/04/2011:
v This
was entirely a different program in the history of Youth for Dharma.
v Swamini
Pramananda Saraswathi agreed to have an exclusive workshop for the Youth for Dharma
members on the topic “What is success?”.
v Firstly
we were divided into 8 teams and were assigned the names of rivers.
v Swamini
Amma issued a questionnaire and asked us to discuss on the same. Once the
discussion part was over the team leaders briefed out what was their team,s
perspective.
v Swamini
Amma finally gave a concluding session on what is success.
v The session was followed by a small meeting
where so many people gave their names to take an active part in our activities.
SRIRAMA NAVAMI
CELEBRATIONS-
v Apart
from our regular activities we decided to celebrate Sri rama Navami,
exclusively as a Youth program.
v It
was planned and just within a week.
v We
distributed pamphlets in various temples for the program.
v The
program started with a bhajans session by the YFD members.
v Shri.
Krishna Jeganathan gave an inspiring talk about “Rama as an inspiration for
youth.”
SLUM VISIT 8/05/2011
v The
slum visit undertaken by the team
of Youth for Dharma on 8th May at Nehru Nagar (near Egmore) was a
resounding success.
v The
agenda which was interaction with families and youngsters of the slum and door to door distribution of vibhuti-kumkum prasadam,
Lord Murugan photo, Lord Muruga/Ganesh Dollar, a sloka book and Pujya Swami’s
book, was carried out with élan by the team which was split into four groups.
v The
entire program lasted for about two hours which included door to door
interaction in about 350 houses in the slum. Each group
was welcomed by householders with happiness and love.
v The
team of 18 youngsters which was a mix of people having been to slums before and
otherwise, had one of their real breaking points in their lifetime , to sound
factual if not anything more.
v The
slum was a place filled with lot of obstacles and
challenges for the team in terms of antagonist believers, rude elements,
chauvinist political activists and rampant prevalence of exploitation of
innocent & ignorant Hindu individuals and families. At the other end, were
people who were kind hearted, highly devotional, genuinely affectionate and completely
innocent in showering love.
v The
team was also confronted in person by some disgruntled elements of the slum but then, the team which was completely poised, calm and
at peace, with devotion in their thoughts and service in their action won over
the hearts and minds of the slum dwellers through their
religious service and humble behaviour.
v The
feedback from the slum dwellers and especially from the
women folk has been very positive and encouraging for the Youth for Dharma team
to undertake such seva activities with devotion in mind, purity in heart,
kindness in words and purpose in action in future.
