In Ulaan Batar, Dada Shubhadhyanananda continues to organize regular relief parcels for poor locals, who are especially in need during the cold winter.
Recent social service activities in Taipei include at the Lin Kou Mentally Challenged School:
...and the Xing Yi Elderly Care Center:
Japan
Following the 9.0 magnitude earthquake and 10-meter high tsunami that hit northeastern Japan on Friday, March 11, AMURT & AMURTEL worked in the coastal towns of Sendai, Tamajo, Shichigahama and Tagajo, serving the elderly by clearing their houses and providing psycho-social programs for the internally displaced people in the camps managed by the local authorities. A large influx of Ananda Marga members from many areas of Japan sacrificed their limited free time to volunteer.
As well as clearing mud and detritus from homes and cleaning parks and beaches, AMURT & AMURTEL ran children's programs including games and English classes, distributed bicycles to schoolchildren and elderly left grounded by the tsunami, and generally offered emotional support to anyone in need by listening to their stories and plans for the future.
Yomiuri Shimbun, the largest daily paper in Japan, published an article about our service work in Shichigahama:
"AMURT & AMURTEL continue to work with local city officials in Shichigahama and Utsunomia to assist the elderly get back to normalcy by helping clearing debris from their homes. Guiseppe Iuvara, The AMURT disaster coordinator in Japan reports, “The Japanese are an amazing people, culturally trained to the virtue of patience and collective harmony, and their composure and wisdom gave us a taste of their mature humanity. This is a community prepared for tsunamis. Imagine that one pensioner told me he had experienced three of them in his life but even he couldn’t imagine one of such power, capable of sweep away in a few minutes 25 percent of his town.” The team recounts the story of one hero who acted in time to warn his neighbors and, in so doing, saved 65 lives.
"The team makes daily visits to the refugee centers in the area to provide counseling to help people cope with mental trauma. They also organize physical activity such as stretching and yoga exercises. Lastly, the team leads children’s activities, such as playing games, singing songs and organizing soccer games. The city officials have been very impressed and have provided an office for the team within one of the refugee centers.
"Sabin Thompson, an American volunteer, writes 'The survivors of the tsunami have blankets, but they need people to warm up their gloomy outlook to the future and give them hope. They have food, but they need people to nurture their hearts. They are surrounded with other human beings, but they need someone willing to stop and hear their story.'"
AMURT will now focus on the towns near the Fukushima plant exclusion zone, where they will offer free homeopathic treatment for the residents, especially the children, and educate the farmers about the cultivation and use of industrial hemp to clean up the soil from radioactive particles, which is what they seem to have successfully done around Chernobyl.
Mongolia
Dada Shubhadhyananda carries out regular AMURT work with a medical clinic, food and blanket distribution, etc, as well as yoga and meditation classes. The Lotus Childrens project was covered in a full-colour magazine article. The home currently has 102 children and new projects for special needs children have been initiated. The project has been shifted to new premises for the home and schools as well as the service activities conducted by Didi Ananda Kalika.
Korea
Regular seminars are held at the Ananda Karnika MU, which is being developed for the purpose continuously by Dada Bhavottarananda and Dada Yukteshananda. Fasting camps are held regularly too for pracar and fundraising purposes. University pracar in Seoul is successfully introducing young people to meditation and Ananda Marga. RAWA has done two big events in public places.
Russia
AMURT/AMURTEL work is going on in different cities around Russia, with food distribution and other service activities. AMURT service to fire victims was covered on the TV news.
Dada Sudhakar, Didi Sarvajina and Didi Kusum are giving many lectures, seminars, retreats, etc, in numerous cities in Siberia and Eastern Russia.
