North and Central America

In Haiti the work on the ground is expanding from health and food security into child protection and sanitation. Check out these links:

Dr Pashupati and our medical team featured in a news segment

Photo gallery

AMURTEL in Haiti blog

Volunteer blog

Donate for the Haiti relief at these websites:

www.amurthaiti.org, www.amurt.us, www.amurtel.org, www.amurt.net





Seven reasons why donating to AMURT is your best choice.


Some more recent news:

Dada Muktatmananda continues to organize the AMURT relief activities in Los Angeles. Every Friday in the morning the "brown bag" food distribution takes place at the Ananda Marga Center. It is a community event where around 10 AMURT volunteers help Dada to distribute around 100 big boxes of a variety of food items. The program benefits 250-300 people a week, representing various ethnicities and immigrant communities such as Latinos, African-Americans and Koreans of low-income families in the LA central area. Every Sunday the food distribution is also held downtown in the Skid Rod area known for its homeless population. An average of 200 people receive a breakfast consisting of cereals with milk, juices, energy drinks, cookies, bakery products and fruits. In all, AMURT is feeding 500 people every week in LA. Dada has also been giving lectures on such topics as Past Lives and Karma and Karma and the Law of Nature at the Hilton LAX Hotel and other venues in Los Angeles, San Diego and San Jose.

Dadas Advayananda and Shubhacetanananda hold weekly free classes on yoga and spiritual/social philosophy at various universities and colleges in the Dallas metroplex area as a service to the academic and surrounding communities. Such programs are much appreciated by the students, faculty and staff who benefit on various levels, especially stress-management needed for highly competitive and demanding academic and working environments. Dada Shubhacetanananda is teaching classes, reporting and writing for the university daily paper, the Shorthorn, at the University of Texas-Arlington (UTA). He met with famed political commentator and consultant David Gergen, author Jeff Guin, and met with local government representatives, several deans, journalists and media representatives, the Mayor of Arlington City and visiting Chinese consulate officials. Prout books were introduced to many of them. Dada Advayananda also met with Dallas community leaders and organizers, introducing the ideas of Prout and Neohumanism to them.

Prof. Ravi Batra has given several media interviews on Prout, most notably in the economics segment of National Public Radio (NPR), presented by Peter Collins. Various other Proutists are also active in their localities all over the sector.

Acarya Vivek continues his teaching activities with two yoga classes and one meditation class in Albany, NY. He has also been working on the Teaching Meditation manual in cooperation with Dada Nabhaniilananda and Didi Devanishta. Dada Vivek continues his teaching activities with two yoga classes and one meditation class in Albany, NY, and was one of the instructors at the yoga teacher’s training held at Ananda Marga's Prama Institute in Asheville, NC. 

The training attracted 12 trainees and was conducted by a team that also included Dada Vishvarupananda, Kaoveri, and Mahajyoti. This year’s training was the fifth year that this program has been conducted.

Acarya Vishvamitra has been busy organizing yoga clubs on five campuses in North Carolina in preparation for a Spring Break program in Asheville in March, 2010. A yoga club at Duke University was set up by Narada and on the UNCA campus in Asheville, Dada Ajay and Dada Vishvamitra guide the yoga course. In nearby Warren Wilson College, Bhavesh is teaching the yoga-meditation course.

Didi Ananda Usa unveiled plans for a new WWD master unit in Asheville, NC. Included in the plan is a designated eco-village area where margiis can establish residences. Didi was also interviewed by North Carolina Woman, a western North Carolina women’s magazine, and made an extensive tour of the southeast USA, visiting Florida, Georgia and South Carolina.

Arun was the trainer at the annual Prabhat Samgiita retreat in Vermont, where 25 people attended. The retreat is held every September.

Dada Nabhaniilananda is guiding activities at the Ananda Marga center in Los Altos, California. The programs there include cultural programs, vegetarian cooking classes and meditation seminars. Dada was interviewed for three hours by Supreme Master TV, a global TV station reporting on spiritual activities. Dada also set up a student yoga group on the University of California’s Berkeley campus.

Tattvika Pashupati conducts a yoga teaching training course in Raleigh, North Carolina. He also teaches yoga and meditation in the North Carolina prison system and his work has been highlighted in the local news, including a full half-hour program on the Health Talk Now TV show.

Acarya Dhyanesh continues to run a successful yoga-meditation course at the University of Texas in Austin.  He recently conducted an afternoon seminar on Bio-Psychology with the participation of Dada Vedaprajinananda.

Dada Vedaprajinananda has been busy with musical activities, performing at music venues in New York City and working on a new CD. Entitled Love is the Best, the CD was released this summer at a special release party held at a New York City club.
 
In California Dada Veda, along with Didi Ananda Laliita and Dada Nabhaniilananda, was a trainer at the spiritual refresher course at the Ananda Dhiira Master Unit.

In Champaign-Urbana, Dada gave concerts for children and adults with special needs at two centers. Dada was also a guest at the yoga course run by Dhruva on the University of Illinois campus in Champaign-Urbana. Dhruva appeared on the university’s TV station in a special program about his yoga classes.


Dada Pranakrsnananda's meditation classes in New York City are well attended and Dada also offers programs in New Haven, Connecticut, Ithaca, New York and in other cities in the US. Dada is currently compiling standardized course modules for Ananda Marga seminars.

Dada Shuddhatmananda gave a lecture on Mind and Meditation at the Young Men’s Preparatory Academy in Miami. The lecture was attended by 35 students and staff members of the academy. While in Florida, Dada also shared his knowledge of Indian cooking in a special vegetarian cooking class.

Dada Rainjitananda guided the reconstruction work on the New York jagrti, which includes a new roof and rooftop garden. Dada gave a lecture at the State University of New York (SUNY) in Westbury recently and teaches yoga classes at the jagrti in English and Spanish.

At the Ananda Dham master unit the hard work of Dada Gananathananda is
paying off as he sells fruits and vegetables from the farm to the local farmers' markets. As well as producing “last chance” peaches (reputedly the best organic peaches in Los Angeles County) from almost 2000 peach trees, he also recently started producing pesto.

Didi Prema is based in Nicaragua where she runs a school, Centro Educativo Ananda Marga, and supervises several social service projects in Managua. A recent teacher training program upgraded the skills of teachers at Didi’s school.

WWD (the Women’s Welfare Department) has established a multipurpose center in Sabana Grande, near Managua. The center offers a naturopathic clinic, health classes and yoga classes. In addition, gardening courses in cooperation with the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) were recently held. A program distributing healthy, ecological and fuel-efficient stoves is also based at this center, as is an HIV education program.

Didi Ananda Anuradha works in nearby Costa Rica, where she supervises a school with 30 children. WWD also offers other social service programs, including workshops for kids in a poor area of San Jose, a food cooperative serving needy families, and medical-health services for immigrant families.

In Mexico City, representatives from Proutist Universal and AMURT/EL participated in the 62nd Annual Conference for NGOs of the United Nations Department of Public Information. The theme for this year was For Peace and Development: Disarm Now! Around 1,500 delegates from all over the world came to Mexico City for the event, which was inaugurated by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon. Among the delegates in the opening day photo there are a number of acaryas and margiis.



Various workshops, panels, exhibitions and meetings took place, including a youth meeting which presented the preparations for the World Youth Conference in Mexico in August of 2010, with 7,000 youth from 200 countries expected to attend. AMURT and PU were invited to contribute in the organizing committee of that event.

At a parallel event called Transformation of the Human Spirit, held at the Mexican Senate, Dada Pranesh presented the book Proutist Economics in Spanish to the President of the Senate of the Mexican Republic, Mr. Carlos Navarrete Ruiz.

A day after the UN event, Proutists participated in the 1st Congress of the World Alliance to Transform the United Nations (WATUN). During the congress, the Proutist delegates helped review and draft the final mission statement of WATUN. The reviewed mission statement now includes respect and freedom of spiritual practices and cultural diversity. One of the Proutist delegates was elected as member of the provisional Council of the World Alliance to Transform the United Nations.

Dada Pranesh spoke to over 400 leaders of the Haitian diaspora at the Haitian Diaspora Unity Conference in Miami, where former-president Bill Clinton and the prime minister of Haiti were the key speakers. Dada was invited to join the organization committee of the next conference. He also gave a lecture on Prout at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and established a Prout club at the campus. Dada also delivered a meditation talk at the Unitarian Church, with a vegetarian dinner and collective meditation for beginners. Laksman is conducting classes at the Yoga Club at UT Knoxville and also working on the Ananda Arpana master unit, which is being prepared to receive volunteers in the near future.


Visit Crimson Dawn for the latest North and Central America news.