A historic meditation retreat was held in the beautiful surrounds of the Ananda Marga community near Santiago at the end of October. Didi Ananda Amegha from Venezuela, Didi Ananda Jaya from Brazil, Didi Ananda Muktivrata from Peru, and host Dada Moksananda all spoke about their respective projects.
In the last two months a dynamic Prout (spirituality-based economic theory) group has started up in Santiago and three conferences have been held in Santiago's prestigious Le Monde Diplomatique Library.
This coming February an intensive yoga instructors course will be held. Due to a successful national alternative magazine add, registrations have been strong. The course is unique in Chile because our yoga system is complete, including all aspects of the traditional yoga, and this holistic approach is very popular. It's a great experience to be trained in our wonderful retreat center near the great Rapel lake. People really experience a special grace there. After intensive spiritual practices for 15 days they feel a deep change in their soul and only return home with great difficulty!
From July 7-9 the Prout Research Institute of Venezuela hosted the Building a Solidarity Economy Based on Ethics and Ecology conference in Caracas. Nationally and internationally recognized authorities presented workshops on economy, ecology, community health, indigenous rights, cooperatives, women's rights, and spiritual wisdom.
Amongst them the speakers represented 12 progressive non-government organizations, a government-owned bank, two large cooperatives, and four universities. All the speakers expressed that they were very inspired by the conference.
Before the conference a total of 1,400 large, full color Prout posters were hung in the cities of Caracas, Guarenas, Guatire, Merida, Maracay and Barquisimeto, and viewed by thousands of people.
Prout topics presented were: Introduction to Prout, Prout's Economic Democracy, Prout Cooperatives, Prout and Ecology, Neohumanism, Spiritual Practices of Prout, Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar, Prout Research Institute, Centro Madre Master Unit, and the Neohumanist Kindergarten.
One of the most popular speakers was Claudio Nascimento, activist and popular educator, cabinet member of President Lula da Silva, member of the National Secretariat for Solidarity Economy of President Dilma Rousseff. He is now writing a book for activists throughout Brazil and has requested us to contribute a chapter on Prout.
Our goal is to get Prout's message to as many people as possible. Our media campaign for the conference resulted in articles published in ten different newspapers. Two television interviews were done, on TELESUR for 30 minutes which is broadcast in all the countries of Latin America, and on Venezuelan National Television VTV for 15 minutes. Five radio stations interviewed the Venezuelan Prout Institute: Radio Nacional de Venezuela (twice for an hour each), Radio Fe y Alegria (1 hour), Radio de Ateneo and Barquisimeto community radio.
At the end of the closing ceremony and final concert, all the participants and speakers danced to a very inspiring kiirtan.
In May the Prout Research Institute of Venezuela instituted the Another Life is Possible public awareness campaign in the capital city, Caracas, to promote a
shift in perception among the public, a greater understanding of the reality we live in and the possibilities for the future. With this initiative, which aims to cover all the major cities, PRI Venezuela strengthens its commitment to promote actions that are aimed at creating a social transformation that has as its starting point the internal transformation of the citizen.
Ananda Marga particpates in the 6th Encontro Holistico conference:
Rurapuk Project in Peru
Rurapuk means "people who help each other" in Quechua, the language of the ancient Incas. The Rurapuk Project is run by AMURTEL in Lima, Peru. It is located in an area of Lima called Paraiso Alto, which is in a zone of extreme poverty. In Paraiso Alto there is no running water or sewerage system and most of the people live in one-room shacks with dirt floors. The center of the Rurapuk Project houses the Rurapuk Hot Lunch Program which serves a free hot lunch to 30 children and 2 elderly ladies five days a week. It is also the meeting place for Rurapuk Mothers, a women’s handicrafts collective. The local community learn reflexology and face-painting brightens up the day.
The newest program of the Rurapuk Center is the formation of a group of therapists who will treat and cure the local people of common conditions such as colds, digestive disorders, joint pain, and stress related issues. The primary form of treatment will be reflexology, accompanied by treatment with local medicinal plants, and diet therapy.
Doctor Mirtha Acosta, Peru’s best reflexologist, and Doctor Martin Corbacho, a local homeopathic physician, have just finished teaching the first series of classes. Eight participants have finished the series. In the last class, Doctor Mirtha asked the students if they had been practicing, and what results they had seen. Señora Julia described how she had cured her son’s cold. The youngest participant, 12 year old Karla, explained how she had cured her mother’s headaches.
Alicia Semanario, project participant, summed up the project: “We chose reflexology because it is low cost, low tech, and cures. We want to use medicinal plants because Peru has an abundance of them and they are accepted as part of our culture and history. Good healthy food is important for everyone. What you eat is what you become. Our purpose is to make a team of therapists who can cure simple fevers and pains because the people in Paraiso don’t have money to buy medicine or see a doctor.”
Today, Rurapuk Stars employs six hearing-disabled women and one non-disabled woman who is our designer and the creator of the first dolls. These women are working full-time at a fair wage to make hand-made ethnic Peruvian dolls. The hearing-disabled women are talented, sincere, hard-working, and have a refined sense of art and aesthetics. It has been our experience that, with patience and proper guidance, they do higher quality work than non-disabled people.
The Machu Picchu Stars doll-making project began in the year 2000 with the idea of generating work for the poorest of the poor in Lima. We started with very little: about US$6, two borrowed sewing machines, and volunteer help. Our first commercial products were Peruvian ethnic dolls. We worked very hard designing, producing, and marketing them and by 2003 the project had grown enough that we were able to incorporate a working team of five hearing-disabled women. We named the project Machu Picchu Stars.
Since that time, we created a company called "Machu Picchu Stars Peru" which sells and markets the dolls and other products. To date we have sold more than 10,000 dolls. Our biggest client is a gift store in the Lima airport, and we have also exported dolls to Sweden, Italy, England, Germany, Brazil, Venezuela, Columbia, Taiwan, Japan and the United States. We now have a trained workforce of ten deaf women who earn a fair wage. Since 2006 we have also produced children's clothes, including recently for the American company Flit and Flitter, and have built up a capital of industrial sewing machines, materials, and finished dolls.
In Peru, when a person becomes deaf it usually terminates their chances for an education and to have a job. Because of the lack of special education in, most adult deaf people have not learned to speak, to read and write, or to use sign language fluently. So the challenge of the deaf is to communicate and most employers will not make the time nor have the patience to do this. These communication challenges make the deaf person almost unemployable. S/he often becomes depressed, loses self-confidence, and feels that s/he is a burden to the family. The mission of Machu Picchu Stars is to remove the barriers that Peruvian society has put in the way of deaf people and to give them the opportunity to work with dignity. It has been my greatest joy to see how the deaf members of our team have grown in self-confidence and self-esteem when given these opportunities. I have also seen again and again that our deaf women work harder and better than so-called "normal" people. They are able to share and work as a team in a way that puts hearing people to shame.
Centro Madre (AMURT) is located in Barlovento, Venezuela and dedicates itself to a variety of educational and agriculture projects for personal and community transformation.
Read the latest news from Centro Madre
Didi Ananda Sadhana writes to update us on Centro Madre (December 2010):
The condition of the children
With great concern I see the neglect and the abuse that many children undergo at the hands of their parents or caretakers. Many times those adults were themselves victims of neglect and abuse. Too often the mothers are teenagers, too young to have matured sufficiently to have undertaken this enormous task of raising a child well. In addition a general loss of values in our communities and society at large worsens this horrible situation. Children are often physically beaten as punishment (sometimes with belts, sticks and shoes), shouted at, told to shut up or just to get out of the way. As a result they too develop aggressive and violent behaviour, learn to lie and have low self-esteem. Their tremendous innate potential gets stunted from the very beginning.
I got to know Melqui in 2006 when she was six years old. She is the oldest of five and has one sister who is mentally ill. Due to lack of love and attention, Melqui had become very difficult. Her young mother insisted she was impossible and needed psychological help, and sent her only sporadically to school. Melqui's future looked quite bleak. When I offered to take care of Melqui's education by having her live with me during the week and go home on the weekends, her mother gladly accepted. Five years have passed now and Melqui is 11 and in fifth grade. She is a fun-loving, happy child who loves to read. Because she has been blessed with the attention of our volunteers from many different countries, this has nurtured her heart as well as her mind. She is becoming an adolescent now which brings its own challenges. One of my dreams is, quite simply, for her to graduate from high school without becoming pregnant.
Unfortunately, in her home the situation continues to be unstable and chaotic. Miguel, her seven-year-old brother, wasn't eating well and often seemed depressed. At school he wasn't doing well. I decided to bring him and his younger brother, Leider, six, to the Center once a week. During meals and storytelling time they get a chance to talk and express how they feel about different things in their lives. To be heard and understood are powerful tools for growth and healing because this helps us to process our difficulties and gather inner strength to face our reality. It is amazing to see how much these simple weekly visits have helped these boys. There is a serious need for programs about good parenting and how to prevent teenage pregnancy. We hope to be able to provide such types of programs.
There are so many children like Melqui and her brothers who are in need of help. It is for this reason that Centro Madre creates projects to nourish the children in their growth. Through the weekly lending of children's books in the villages, storytelling, theater, games and other cultural and educational activities, we try to create the environment where the children can develop their potential and learn how to face and overcome the many difficulties they encounter in their lives. Here are some of our projects:
The mural project
In June a psychologist volunteer from Hungary came to visit Barlovento. He had experience doing wall paintings with children in Hungary. We invited a group of teenage girls from the neighboring village of Madre Vieja to come for three days of workshops to stimulate their creativity and to create a theme for the wall painting. Our volunteer struggled with the cultural differences between the teenagers in Hungary and the girls here, who have had far fewer opportunities to develop their creativity and to formulate their own opinions. But when they finally started to paint the wall of their community center, the result was really creative and beautiful. The girls felt good about it and many other kids joined in the painting as well. Months later, they proudly tell me that visitors who come to their village still take pictures of it. We repeated the activity in the village of La Guairita and started with the sixth grade class in the school of Los Galpones.
Children's Day
The 10 girls who participated in the wall painting were inspired to join us in our yearly activity of the celebration of Children's Day in four villages. They all dressed up as clowns and in an open truck loudly and merrily attracted all the people to come. A Venezuelan volunteer presented a wonderful puppet show, we played lots of games together, planted a tree in one village and, of course, served juice and cake to all.
Reading program
Our children's libraries in two villages are doing well. We also started to support two schools with books and workshops about reading. The books not only strengthen academic skills, they offer a wealth of new ideas and quality values. The kids see themselves and their lives reflected in the stories of children.
How you can help
As I put my arms around Melqui at night and ask her about her day, I remember that little girl who came into my life five years ago. That child who peered at me so inquisitively is developing into a young lady with her own potential and her own dreams. Melqui is the embodiment of what we offer: a life that is rich with personality, trust, dedication and ethics, a life full of hope, potential, and love. She is a very important part of our family in the center.
Every child is important. They all deserve a chance to develop. They all deserve to be contributing members of society. We are dedicated to seeing this become a reality. Help us give these children an opportunity in life.
Directed by Didi Ananda Sadhana for the last 10 years, Centro Madre is in Barlovento, Venezuela, two hours by bus from Caracas. Starting in February 2009, a very intense effort has been undertaken to develop a self-reliant, integrated farm at Centro Madre. Our goal is both to create a regular source of income from a wide variety of agricultural products and to educate the local community about the principles and practices of small-scale organic agriculture.
Our project is inspired by the following words of Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar: "Self-reliance is the main objective of our farming projects, hence they should be oriented towards production. They should not be dependent on outside resources. An integrated approach to farming should include such areas as agriculture, horticulture, floriculture, sericulture, lac culture, apiculture, dairy farming, animal husbandry, irrigation, pisciculture, pest control, the proper use of fertilizers, cottage industries, energy production, research centres and water conservation. This approach will help make farming projects self-reliant, and should be adopted."
shift in perception among the public, a greater understanding of the reality we live in and the possibilities for the future. With this initiative, which aims to cover all the major cities, PRI Venezuela strengthens its commitment to promote actions that are aimed at creating a social transformation that has as its starting point the internal transformation of the citizen.
Rurapuk Project in Peru
