WEversity

Lokenath Divine Life Mission

Street Schools in Action

Most people around the world were entranced by the movie Slum Dog Millionaire.

But in the heart of the slums of Calcutta LDLM conducts four schools for

homeless children who live on the street, were born on the street, and go to

school on the street! Take a visit with Baba Shuddhaanandaa on his recent visit

to see the children and give them all news clothes for the Festivals in India.

 

 

 

This is a sweet little angel from the Garcha Street school beaming with joy to receive new clothes and sweets from Baba

on the eve of the festival of Durga Puja. Every year on the eve of this festive occasion, the Mission distributes new clothes to all the children of the Mission run street schools around the city of Calcutta.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another girl from Garcha street school and she has grown up with the Mission, for when she first joined the mission run school she was a small girl of 5 years. Baba gives her the gift of news clothes to her.

 

 

 

 

                                         Namaskar with gratitude from a young student of Garcha school

 

 

 

This is a very joyful girl from Kalighat Street school. The Kalighat street school draws its students from the families who live on the road side pavements and huts. They are very poor. Yet, look at the face of this girl performing a dance right on the road where the school sits with such joy and positive light on her face. The other children look on. 

 

 

 

Isn’t she so cute! They are deprived of most things that go to make one happy in life, yet they are the children who teach us one and all, that happiness is an attitude and it is the positive light of the Soul.

 

 

 

 

Subhash is physically and mentally challenged. He joined Kalighat street school when he was a small boy, he has been with this school for last 14 years. He loves Baba and always wants to be comforted by his touch and hug. When he joined the school he could not talk nor could he walk properly, but the love and attention of the teachers and volunteers of the Mission and the Grace of Baba Lokenath (whose ardent devotee he is) transformed him and he started to talk and walk. Now he sings when the music class is on. Dances when the dancing class is on session. Paints when the drawing teacher comes to teach them creative paintings.

 

 

Baba with Subhash on the street side where the Kalighat street school is located. The children look on compassion in action.

 

 

 

 

 

The children of SwinHoe Street school perform “We shall overcome” the dance that steals the show. They were participating in Dance Competition hosted by another NGO in Calcutta.

 

The schools are actually held on the streets. The children who attend them live on the streets. Currently, there are about 200

children attending 6 schools held in various slums around the city of Kolkata. (There are over a hundred schools in rural villages educating thousands of children. Many of those schools are held in donated spaces.) Three of the Kolkata street schools teach in Bengali and three teach in Hindi.

Parents are counseled about the long-term benefits of sending their children to school rather than into the streets to beg, so they will support school attendance. Rather than using paper and pens, the children practice their letters and do math in the dirt with sticks. The children are given a set of new clothes when they first come to school and at Diwali, the biggest festival of the year. They are asked to come to school each day clean and washed. (When sent out to the streets to beg, children are trained to look as tattered, dirty and pathetic as possible, which is demeaning.) The primary goals of LDLM schools is to foster each child's sense of dignity, personal worth, and the discovery of their talents and gifts through joyful learning.

 

The children are provided a meal. They learn poems and songs. They do artwork. They learn yoga and meditation, sports, traditional dance

and breathing exercises to help them creatively channel their energy. They participate in sports and dance competitions to foster their sense of accomplishment and are taken on excursions and picnics to expand their horizons.

When they are ready for primary school, LDLM helps to mainstream them into local schools.

Baba's primary criteria for selecting a teacher is her capacity for love, to be a real mother figure to the children. "More important to me than what or how much they learn is how much they enjoy learning and leave school knowing they are loved, knowing they are seen and that they have personal gifts that are worth celebrating. That will give them the base from which to learn and succeed in life," .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Baba Shuddhaanandaa Brahmachari, Founder and President of Lokenath Divine Life

 

Mission (LDLM), calls for collective prayer and meditation to help villagers of West Bengal,

 

India devasted by Cyclone Ayala in May, 2009.

 

            

After cyclone children in villages wait in line        Baba and self help group in February, 2009

for water and smile hopefully for camera

 Hundreds of thousands have been devastated by Cyclone Aila which hit West Bengal, India on May 25. The storm washed out most of the villages served by LDLM, villages that had very successful micro-credit projects, self help groups, and eco-friendly farming. The villagers have lost everything, but this has only proved to be a new challenge for Baba Shuddhaanandaa Brahmachari, economist turned monk, social advocate and founder of LDLM. Baba predicts that they will rebuild and regenerate, and that the region will be stronger than before!

 The philosophy behind the work done by Baba and LDLM has always been to not give charity directly to the people, but instead to inspire them to help themselves!  Baba feels that direct charity creates a dependency where people never feel the satisfaction and blessings of being economically self sufficient.  Immediately after the initial devastation, LDLM rushed in supplies of water, dry food. medicine and plastic sheeting for temporary shelter. LDLM is now planning for the phase two of the relief work where they will try to convince the people to act on their own to rebuild the broken roads, clear up the fallen trees, and other damages. In return they are planning to give them rice at a subsidized price, so that those devastated can now gradually earn money to buy their foods. As a principle LDLM will not run the charity for long lest the people get into the mode of 'receiving' rather than coming out of the trauma and get into action phase of rebuilding their homes.This is a huge task, but LDLM plans to take it up one village at a time and go ahead.
 

Baba also firmly believes in the powerful, positive energy that collective prayer and collective meditation can bring to the world. He encourages everyone who wants to help to either individually or collectively meditate on the plight of these suffering people who have lost so much, and asks that you send all positive energy and light their way.

Baba says: 

“Yes, the peace will return, for nothing can stop the indomitable spirit of man to win and keep afloat against any adversities of life, particularly to these people of the Sunderban Islands who, for years, have learned the hard way of life. Good days will come again for them, for God is good. How can He watch His loving children in pain for long??? That is my faith, faith in my Divine Mother, for Her to have compassion for Her children.

I only wish you all intensify your prayers and meditation for the good of the world, more and more! Sarve bhavantu Sukhinah! May all beings in this universe be happy, for Baba believes until every human being on this earth is happy, no one can be truly happy!”

 For more information about the devastation and plans for rebuilding, please visit

www.feelinghearts.org. 

 

Since 1985, Baba Shuddhaanandaa Brahmachari has been honing a new model for sustainable development using education, self-help, and micro credit through his organization, Lokenath Divine Life Mission (LDLM).  LDLM does not use agency funding.    Visit us at  www.feelinghearts.org

                           

                                   Baba meeting with SHG women from Sunderbans in February 2009

 

   Facilitating the poor’s ability to create wealth through Self Help.

 My heart’s first thought in serving all human beings has always been to release them from the crippling, self-created illusion of dependence.  To my mind, no true help comes through charity, and no gift from outside can change the plight of the underprivileged. 

Traditional charity involves a gift from one who has more than the one who receives it, which generates lower self-esteem and a sense of inadequacy in the receiver.  It leaves the receiver waiting for the next handout, more convinced than ever of his or her own powerlessness, and with the personal initiative required to move beyond poverty depleted.     

The poor, like all of us, are inordinately gifted, despite their circumstances. The inner richness that is their greatest resource in overcoming their poverty goes unacknowledged, untapped.  Yet, they can create wealth, and they must, if they are ever to be free of poverty. To adequately serve the poor, we must support them in that process. 

Lokenath Divine Life Mission (LDLM) is in the business of wealth creation.  We work to kindle the light of awareness, to engender faith in those who are hopeless:  faith in themselves and in their inherent capacity, strengths, and gifts. We provide health, education, and resource linkages to make success practical and attainable.

This Mission, therefore, is as much a work of consciousness as of economic development.  Our programs are designed not only to acknowledge and build on the inner resources of the individual, but to include those of the shared life of the village, and to integrate the contribution of culture into the process of development.  We take that approach because, if the last 100 years of human society demonstrate anything, it is that development without consciousness of those humanizing dimensions only further impoverishes everyone on the planet. 

            Everything LDLM does, therefore, is firmly grounded in the philosophy of Self Help.  Our fully democratic Self Help Groups (SHGs) represent and promote this philosophy. LDLM is merely a catalyst and facilitator. Our programs provide the education and health services, and the structural supports and resource linkages to develop awareness as well as personal capacity, to create solid ground for development that is both sustainable and which nourishes the individual and the social context in which he or she lives.  

There is no more effective way to work with human beings and the ills with which they wrestle than Self Help.  There is no greater gift to our shared human future than human beings who have discovered the immensity of their own inner resources and strengths, and their ability to overcome even the most difficult of circumstances, while working with deep mutual regard for one another and for the well being of the social context in which they live.    

Baba Shuddhaanandaa Brahmachari Founder/President

Lokenath Divine Life Mission

 

 

 

 

LOKENATH DIVINE LIFE MISSION

 

Serving Humanity as the Manifestation of God

 

 

SCOPE

 

• Serves millions of impoverished men, women and children

 

• Encompasses hundreds of rural villages in West Bengal and Assam

 

• Serves over 60 slums in West Bengal and Assam.

 

• Collaborates with other organizations on additional programs

 

• Continually identifies additional ways to address

the needs of underserved populations

 

 

 

AGENDA

 

• Education and health for all

 

• Women’s empowerment through fostering of economic self-reliance

 

• Environmental sanitation and human waste disposal refuse disposal,

control of water borne diseases

 

• Environmental preservation and awareness through planting of trees,

cleanliness of village ponds, roads and housing

 

• Preserving of fragile soils through organic and eco-friendly agriculture

 

 

 

 

Annual Budget:

 

Varies between $40,000 and $75,000 USD.

 

 

 From Baba Shuddhaanandaa Brahmachari, Founder and Director of Lokenath Divine Life Mission, based in Kolkata, India:

 

There are core questions and concerns that guide and shape my work:  

 

How can everything we do foster a stable, healthy society and enhance personal well-being in the populations we serve?  

 

How can we stimulate people’s realization of their innate potential, of the strengths and gifts they already have, as the foundation on which to build their future? 

 

How can we nurture independence and accomplishment rather than create any hint of dependency on handouts, which would undermine their initiative and dignity? 

 

How can we nourish a growth in consciousness along with economic advancement that will preserve their deeply rooted cultural values, their qualities of spirit and character?  

 

Who are we to destroy the character and spirit of a people, of a community, in the name of development?

 

Development that fails to address the issues of consciousness along with economic advancement shreds the cultural fabric. It corrupts the spirit.  It assures a culturally rootless misery that is more difficult to overcome than poverty itself, one that is devastating to the spirit. 

 

Typical non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are run on the funding principle that they accept grants from agencies, whether domestic or overseas.  That funding is project based. The money has to be spent in a certain way within a certain time frame.  Expenses are organized, predetermined.  Those NGOs have to pay higher wages.  Their establishment and infrastructure expenses run high. 

 

My vision was always for low-cost, sustainable development that provided the deep educational foundation necessary for truly sustainable development to occur.  True development honors and strengthens the character, culture and traditions of a given population. A structure of consciousness has to grow along with the development if the character of the individual and the community are to be sustained in the movement forward. 

 

I knew that if I relied on agency funding, in the course of time, I would end up working to spend the money as designated rather than on what would actually be for the highest possible good of those we serve.  This way, I am free to be flexible and completely conscious of the impact of how I spend.  I never have to sacrifice the independence and initiative being developed through our work.   I am never obligated to spend a penny extra to meet a bureaucratic requirement that will stimulate greed, the hope of getting something for nothing or that will in any way diminish someone’s dignity by making them feel they couldn’t do as well for themselves.  

 

 

RURAL PROJECTS: 

  

Joyful Education

·         100 Ananda Schools in Sundarbans delta educating over 3,200 children

·         Literacy and value based education that instills the joy of learning in preschool children

·         Yoga, pranayama, and meditation to channel children’s energy and creativity

·         Faculty support and book bank grants to government high schools

·         Coaching centers for drop-outs

 

  Health

·         2 mobile health vans providing preventative and curative homeopathic treatment; referrals as needed to government hospitals and physicians

·         Project Vision: free eye clinics with referral for cataract microsurgery and eye care as needed.  Approximately 300 surgeries annually

·         Dental Clinic and Awareness Project:  free dental check, treatment and awareness.

·         Health awareness and special topic training, including HIV /AIDS awareness programs

 

  Women’s Empowerment Through MicroCredit Self-Help Groups

·         In last decade, over 1300 women’s SHG groups have served 14,000 rural women.

·         Approximately 700 fully democratic SHGs now function independently of LDLM management and serve as ongoing forces for change in their communities.

·         Group members make small mandatory monthly contributions to strengthen the saving habit and create a corpus which is used to extend soft loans to members.  These soft loans eliminate exploitation by usurious moneylenders, who deepen the cycle of poverty.  More than 2.5 million Indian Rupees stand in bank deposits of SHG groups.

·         Group members are educated in use of banking system; assume collective responsibility for repayment of bank loans.

·         Banks extend larger development loans to the SHG group.

·         All loan decisions are made by consensus of the group.

·         100% bank loans recovery rate.  No loans to SHGs go unpaid

·         Types of supports by LDLM:  

·         Growing in the discovery of the difference they can make in their own and one another’s lives, group members naturally evolve individually and collectively in leadership. They address important issues arising in their community, and make strong collective stands in breaking down outmoded and harmful taboos and practices.

 

Farmers Clubs

    Past projects: 

·         Deep community tube wells dug to provide pure water and cut the cycle of disease in villages where arsenic laced soils tainted the water. 

·       Farmers trained to build and maintain community irrigation projects to extend the growing season to 2 or 3 crops rather than one in destitute villages

·       Training in latest organic and eco-friendly agricultural methods to preserve fragile soils

·       SHG micro-credit programs to end reliance on usurious moneylenders

 

   Present projects: Our Farmers Clubs have moved more toward the SHG model 

·       Ongoing education on most recent eco-friendly and organic agricultural production and animal husbandry methods in association with educational institutions

·       Democratically administered micro credit programs on the same model as the women’s SHGs

 Sanitation

Program Goal:  to educate and motivate households to acquire, use and maintain sanitary latrines. 600 have been installed with villager’s personal resources. 

Many NGOs have come, promoted, and signed families up for low cost sanitation latrines which were promptly installed.  Those latrines would inevitably been converted into storerooms.  LDLM takes 6 months to educate the community about sanitation needs and the importance of maintaining the system.  We wait for the 1^st latrine to be installed with a villager’s own money.  Soon, others are saving for one.  It’s a slower process, but every time a new sanitation is added, it is used.   We create the hunger.  We don’t give money or a subsidized price.  We don’t have those resources.  We create the hunger, the need for sanitation, in a way that will spread throughout the community naturally. 

 

Forestry:  Nurseries have been developed with plantings from the forestry department Sunderbans

 

Model Village Project

In cooperation with government of West Bengal administration, the village of Chunchura of Sandeshkhali, Sunderban, was selected to serve as a model project of comprehensive, integrated village development and economic empowerment of the poor using the SHG model throughout the village.

 

Collaboration to Stop Child Labour and Women Trafficking

LDLM collaborates with the Central Board for Workers Education, the Ministry of Labour & Employment; and Field Publicity Department, Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, Government of India, to create awareness of labour laws, and available government programs.  It arranges and conducts special topic seminars and workshops to stop child labor and women trafficking in the villages begin served.

 

URBAN PROJECTS

 

  Children’s Education

·         Elimination of child labor through education.

·         Counsel parents on long term benefits of sending their children to school rather than to streets to beg or into child labour market.

·         6 early childhood education Street Schools for slum dwellers serve 200 Kolkata children annually. 

·         Coordinate with local schools to mainstream students to primary level.

·         Formative recreation, annual picnic, sports, excursions, dance, painting, yoga & meditation to channel children’s energy, creativity, and develop sense of accomplishment.

·         Quality of Life Programs:  fosters awareness of girls in adolescence on menstrual hygiene, reproductive health and rights, personal cleanliness, etc.

·         Adult and adolescent girls training cum productions centers in sewing, embroidery, etc.

·         UTSAV, a home for destitute children from tribal communities

·         SO-HAM School for Intellectually and Physically Challenged Children, provides vocational training for rehabilitation for those with special needs.

 

Community Health Program for Slum Dwellers:

·         7 Community Health Clinics in Kolkata have standing physicians offering inexpensive (or free), preventative and curative homeopathic medical treatment,

·         Referral as needed to government hospitals and physicians.

·         Dental treatment clinics teach dental care, awareness and provide free treatment

·         Advanced Eye Care Clinics.  Free cataract surgery for approximately 600 patients is provided annually in collaboration with Nihar Munshi Eye Foundation. (clarify, 300 rural, 600 urban actual numbers)

 

Integrated development:  

LDLM has adopted two slums in Kolkata, Gorcha and SwinHoe, for integrated development, focusing especially on:  1) safe drinking water; 2) improved sanitary conditions; 3) empowering women through SHG participation and vocational education to enhance life competency;  and  4) prepare children through non-formal education for mainstreaming to primary schools.

 

Nara Narayana Anna Dana Seva:  “We are not feeding the poor, we are feeding God.”

·         80 to150 Kalighat slum dwellers who cannot feed themselves are provided a generous, healthy lunch of rice, lentils and vegetables each day at a cost of Rs 10 each (40 cents USD).

·         This program has been initiated outside of LDLM’s normal budget resources.  We invite others to join us in the privilege of supporting and expanding this project.

 

 

 

 

Visit us atwww.feelinghearts.org