Work of Hindu Academy

[Guest guest]

Dear Colleagues (Kamalbhai.. Pls distribute this to our past and present students and teachers)

 

Let me share news about the progress of Vivekananda Centre London now called the Hindu Academy.

Some of our key members are offering very valuable contribution in various fields.

 

Vijaybhai has been attending many of the faith in the system meetings and is part of the faith and belief in further education

Premnathji has been invited to offer talk to 300+ delegates on Interfaith issues and recently was part of the NSPCC conference on role of faiths to protect children

Krishnabhai continues to participate in work in the midlands and recently gave a talk to an Interfaith assembly in Wellingborough

Ushmaben has been a major force in the Ramayana Exhibition at the British Library

Kamalbhai continues to interact and offer Hindu input at three SACREs + do the administration work for our candidates

Ashokbhai arranges monthly talks at Sindhi Mandir which are being recorded for aastha tv + is about to arrange monthly talks at his home (also for recording). Ashokbhai is the wise treasurer who makes sure we do not give away too many things too cheaply! Because of his work in opening up new doors we are making rapid progress in various unexpected fields.

Seeta is working as a 'fund-raiser' at a Christian charity - in days to come we will have to draw on her expertise.

MadhooSoodanji and Amit Puri have been major helpers in the work we do with media and publishing. Amit has done immense amount of work for us in recording, editing all the material that is now getting into the media. MadhooSoodanji continues to help with classes in both East and West London and has been a major support on technical issues.

Arun, Rajiv, Vikram and Manu are helping to send circulars to all temples / schools / Hindu bodies. They are also producing a data base which allows us to send messages to all 25,000 schools in the country - We are about to buy a high powered computer to make sure we do not crash

Abhinay Mehta has manged to get our Hinduism for schools website gave it firefox features and now we are the third most popular website in google under 'Hinduism' !

Amita Gungaram runs our children's classes + offers classical dance input at some of our functions (next one is on 2nd November at Eton College).

Hemaben in Birmingham has been quietly running Hinduism classes for over 10 years.. bravo! Credit goes to Binaji in Leciester who despite temple politics continues to work away. Krishnabhai is multi-talented so he has helped with the Luton class and continues to travel to London to contribute.

We are interacting strongly with the Examining boards who are now reviewing their GCSE syllabus in Hinduism......We are still struggling on some of the issues!!

Hindu Academy (that has been operating as a non-profitmaking company) will become a registered charity this summer.

 

Let me share with you what we plan for the holiday period:

 

Build up relationship with more temples. At the moment our strength is the Swaminarayan Temples we are now trying to build relationship with Anoopam Mission, Stanmore temple, Bristol Temple and some of the other smaller temples in other towns

Approaching other Hindu bodies (and in many cases Indian bodies) in various smaller towns to do series of talks for them. So far we have done this with Bracknell and Aylesbury as well as with Luton.

Approach every SACRE in the country. Give them free resources in Hinduism (Hinduism books and DVDs) to help them shape the local syllabus on Hinduism.

Build up more relationship with universities - we are now working regularly with a dozen universities and this year we hope the number will go up to 20

MA in Hinduism - We were not successful with London Metropolitan University. We are now negotiating with Middlesex University who are making very positive noises.

Build direct relationship with some government organisations to offer them educated Hindu input.

Build on the media work. As you know Aastha on sky 807 is free. Aastha are seriously thinking of giving us half an hour slot everyday. At the moment we are getting half an hour on Saturday evenings from 9.30 to 10pm and on Sunday morning from 10am to 11am. (these programmes that go out internationally are giving us wonderful exposure worldwide... I had a call from Mrs Amita Birla expressing genuine interest in our work. We hope these talks will generate interest in our Hinduism classes at all locations.

The talk at Demontford University that was broadcast on aastha on two Sundays earlier - seemed to have hit the mark as we have very positive reaction from lots of youngsters. Amit is turning this into a DVD - we hope to send it to India for duplication so that it becomes part of our resource together with the two textbooks and other dvd recorded at teachers training colleges.

I am scheduled to do long sessions in Sept/Oct for Canterbury Christchurch University, University of Wales, University of East London, Sheffield Hallam University and three major sessions at Guildford Cathedral .. all these will be recorded and will become useful resource.

As you can see, we have come a long way from being a small Sunday Vivekananda class run for children. All this has become possible due to the selfless and tireless efforts of many of our volunteers. Let me take this opportunity to thank them all. I am sure I have forgotten many others who have stood by us and offered us support.

 

regads and thanks

jay