Trust Update - June 2011

The School gets off the ground before Arunachala

Here is the latest news on the building of the Arunachala Matriculation School which we are attempting to support through the auspices and limited resources of our Ramana Baba Village Trust.

The supporting pillars have now been erected and the staircases will be started as soon as new funds come in. Happily our constant donators have enabled us to send them another thousand pounds this week in their time of urgent need.

We would be delighted to hear from any others who are able donate something to keep the project moving. Every little helps.

Lady Workers

Says Karunanithi, the Director:

"Namaste Baba ji,"

"Thank you very much for the fund. It will be surely very much supportive to the school in this moment."

"Our students are very grateful to you and your students." 

“This work needs 20 tons of steels, 1000 bags of cements, 20 loads of sand and 20 loads of blue metals. Apart from these, centering work will be done for the whole terrace area and beams. Concrete mixing machine and skilled workers are needed. The roughly estimated amount for this work would be INR 1,800,000.”

"May Arunachala bless you for smooth and successful workshops in UK."

"Warmest Regards,"

"Karuna"

Trust Update - May 2011

Sri Ramana School Foundations & Arunachala

Trust Update - June 2008

Thanks to your constantly gentle flow of donations we have been able to extend our assistance to a growing number of needful and worthwhile projects in southern India.

Swami Dayananda Portrait.
(Photo, Janet Priestly)

However, on our SEEKER’S INDIA TOUR this January, because of banking blunders, our Village Trust Banker’s Draft did not arrive in time for our visit to the free Jayavarthanaveli Rural hospital for the poor tribal people of the mountains near Coimbatore, in Tamil Nadu. This is a project developed by Swami Dayananda’s AIM for SEVA Trust, and which now caters for at least a hundred patients per day. However, after a whip round, we were able to offer £180 to hep things along. Thanks to our previous year’s donation they have now been able to purchase a special truck offering free medical aid to the isolated mountain villages.

Mobile Village Medics.

Free Hospital frontage.
(Photo, Sonja Schweizer)

Spotless Hospital Visit.
(Photo, Pete Barrett)

Analysis Laboratory.
(Photo, Janet Priestly)

Cool Hospital Interior Courtyard.
(Photo, Janet Priestly)

Finally, the Banker’s Draft came through and was credited to the AIM for SEVA campaign at Arsha Vidya Gurukulam, near Coimbatore, for sustaining the Free Hospital and its other multifarious projects, such as the Boys and Girls Free Hostel School.

Baba giving out Prashad.
(Photo, Pete Barrett)

The Seeker’s Group at the Girls’ Hostel.
(Photo, Pete Barrett)

Project Manager Jagan Nathan, wrote:

“I am extremely glad to advise that your kind remittance of One Thousand Pounds sterling has since been credited to our AIM for Seva account on the 16th. We thank you for your consideration to help us and we will ensure that the funds are utilised for the welfare of the tribals and the rural villagers in our projects.”

Their Trust also assists the tribal villagers to develop their own communal cottage industries: clothes-making, zircon gem cutting for jewellery, papermaking and marbling, milk-sweet making, etc.

Vocational Training in Dress Making.

AIM for SEVA agricultural projects include offering a free tree for every citizen of Coimbatore to plant and care for, in order to combat pollution, and the cultivation of oil plants for use instead of petrol.

Shantimalai Director Werner Nickl, receiving a £1000 Bank Draft from Muz Murray (Ramana Baba) donated by The Ramana Baba Village Trust. (Photo, Mirabai Huntley)

Another Thousand Pounds was also granted to the Shanthimalai Trust at Arunachala, Tiruvannamalai, for the overwhelming amount of charitable projects they are funding, which include:

The Isha Mobile Health Clinic, for Tiruvannamalai and the surrounding villages (contributing to 50% of their annual expenses).

Akshaya Trust – dedicated to feeding the mentally retarded at Madurai.

Assisting Terre des Hommes Core Trust for Tsunami Orphaned Children and also the Tsunami Children’s Home in Cuddalore.

Gifting a parcel of Shiva-Shakti land to the Arunachala Education & Environmental Development Trust for a new English medium Residential School.

Funding the Ramana Maharshi Rangammal Hospital and support for HIV patients, plus the recent purchase of a Dialysis machine.

Supporting the Ramana Maharshi Health Centre for Tsunami Relief.

Constant funding for Karunya Old Age Home at Chengham (22 miles from Tiru’).

200 blankets provided for Orphaned Children at the Saron Boarding Home (run by the Arcot Lutheran Church in Tiruvannamalai).

Setting up a bore-well in Kamanthampoondi village, supplying 20 houses with water.

A new roof for Annaipirantham Government School.

Construction of a Kitchen for St. Anthony’s Matriculation School and Orphanage at Kanji; plus donating a new School Bus.

Renovation of the local Pachiamman Temple.

Also the constant care of 1,000 poor and needy destitute local villagers, providing them with monthly pensions and medical care, is the most difficult outlay to keep up.

The poor and needy.

Lining-up for Assistance Vouchers.

One-legged dependant.

Grateful Leper Lady.

Because of the lack of interest in sanitation from the local authorities, Shanthimalai has now managed to purchase their own garbage pick-up truck and a permanent driver. Together with a group of volunteers, they keep the Pradakshina Road (the 8 mile circumambulation route around the holy mountain) free of the piles of garbage left behind after thousands of pilgrims and picnickers have so generously littered the route during each full moon. The refuse is taken out to a government controlled refuse site, where (most unusually), the various items, paper, plastic, metal cans, etc., are sorted and recycled, or disposed of accordingly.

Every year the destitute villagers are offered new blankets, sarees and food parcels.

Villagers with their new sheets and blankets.

Appa (Dr. Hugo Mier) and partner Amma, who began this tradition.

Together with Shantimalai we are also campaigning to get the avaricious gang of  so-called sadhus removed from the top of holy Arunachala Mountain, where they are setting up a tent and rusty shack settlement, dumping refuse everywhere and harassing the meditative pilgrims for money. Shantimalai volunteers have already collected and brought down over thirty tons of refuse spread by the thoughtless ‘sadhus.’

Pressure is also being put on the authorities to repair the road leading to the Rangammal Ramana Maharshi Hospital, which is disgracefully potholed. For accident victims this is a painful liability. They suffer even more damage from the dreadful jolting of the ambulance on attempting to get to the hospital along a road as uneven as a riverbed  (as I found to my cost after being hit by a car on my last day in India this year and driving myself to hospital on a twisted motorbike!—Muz).

Offering donation cheque to the Director of the Rotary Club.

Such was our largesse with last year’s contributions, that we were also able to offer another £500 to the Rotary Club of Tiruvannamali, who have rendered sterling work in cleaning up disgustingly festering bathing tanks and various areas of the city ignored by the authorities. The President and Director have also been supporting (from their own pockets, to the dismay of their families) several hundred destitute old people who have no other means of sustenance.

So do—please, keep it coming! Every little goes a long way here.

STOP PRESS!

                    HELP! VERY URGENT FUNDS NEEDED

In February, we visited the remarkably active Sri Ramana Matriculation School, which offers free study for underprivileged children from five years old up to teenage students. The School is coeducational and in English medium.

Sri Ramana Science Class

Free School Bus

Academic Study

Packed and attentive classes are held in two buildings in a village street on the outskirts of Tiruvannamalai. It was noticeable that a loving rapport exists between the teachers and the bright-eyed eager young students. We were astonished to discover that the level of knowledge in all subjects and the acumen of each age group was way in advance of any equivalent children’s classes in the UK.

The Sri Ramana School also houses, feeds and educates a small group of orphans.

Free Meals for Orphans

Mealtime Prayer
(Photo, Mirabai Huntley)

Suddenly, in its unfathomable wisdom, the governmental bureaucracy has decided that as the size of the classrooms do not fit the statutory requirements, the school must be closed down. This is disastrous and a tragedy for all concerned.

Ramana Baba at Sri Ramana School.
(Photo, Mirabai Huntley)

The School Committee has already managed to purchase a large plot of land in full view of the Holy Mountain Arunachala, on which they hope to build a modest school with the requisite size rooms as specified by law. Here they could also teach the children gardening (by growing their own vegetables) and animal husbandry, in fresh air away from the pollution of the town.

Showing the Proposed School Site.
(Photo, Mirabai Huntley)

They are now desperately in need of funds for the construction of a building before the legislation permit runs out for the continuance of the school.

Please, please, help this project with whatever you can—as soon as possible—for the sake of these dedicated teachers and the wonderful children.

Otherwise not only will all the dedicated teachers jobs be lost, but the children dispersed, forced to part from their friends and a loving environment and the only home some of them have ever known.

If you have a mite to spare, please send it to the Ramana Baba Village Trust.

Muz Murray (Ramana Baba)

Progress Report - December 2008

Children’s Day at Sri Ramana School

We are delighted to report that the Government-threatened Sri Ramana Matriculation School is ploughing ahead in heartfelt faith that funds will come in to support its development. In sight of Holy Arunachala, the boundary walls have already been built along the newly purchased property and foundations laid for the school buildings. 

The children have been ferried out to the land several times to plant trees around the perimeter and are learning to care for their upkeep. The school intends be a totally integrated learning environment, where besides the usual educational subjects the children will also attend to gardening, growing their own food and learning animal husbandry.

The school Director, Sri Karunanithi  (‘Karuna’ for short) heartily welcomes any volunteers who are willing to come out and teach English to these (wonderfully receptive and well-behaved) children.

You may contact him direct by Email: Sri Karunanithi

or through Ramana Baba (Muz Murray) by  

Karina Stewart

Salutations to our Five-Star Yogini of the Year! – Karina Stewart, for her incredible efforts in organising several sponsored days of 108 rounds of Surya Namaskar (Salutation to the Sun) exercises, which have raised an astonishing £3,000 towards the support of this school project. We are delighted to have her on board for our pilgrimage to Tiruvannamalai this winter, where we are visiting the school and seeing first-hand how the project is developing.

Together with Karina’s contribution and thanks to our committed group of yoga folk who are continuously supporting the Trust whenever they can, we are now able offer the sum of £3,500 towards the school’s development.

Every little helps. Please join us in our efforts.