SOHAM

Development through Meditation Social Orientation to Human Aspirations through Meditation

(SOHAM ) (A brief Profile) WHO WE ARE (SOHAM) is a grass root organization working for the cause of Rehabilitating Destitute/underprivileged /poverty-stricken/orphaned Children through Meditation. Soham is a non -profit organization registered under society registration Act XXI, 1860 in the year 2005. Philosophy The basic philosophy is that no development is possible without developing your Inner Self. We believe that Meditation is a base for Self Enrichment. It helps to resolve our EGO, Inner Conflicts and Politics of personal motives and generates love and a strong will power. We do not see meditation as a branch of Knowledge of any particular sect or ideology but we definitely believe that Meditation can bring mental peace, life goals and commitment in life. So all our developmental activities have Meditation as a core activity.

What We are Doing?

SOHAM is running a Sohamvishvas Ghar at Sabhtu Road in Ghatti Village of Solan Block of Solan District of Himachal Pradesh. 12 orphaned/destitute/poverty stricken children are living and trying to cope with traumatic experiences of their life.

Basic Package of Education, Dress, Recreation, Health and Boarding and Lodging with a special emphasis on Meditation is kept for them.

WHAT WE INTEND TO DO

Problem identified

People in rural areas have been largely undertaken by the problem of alcoholism. People take to alcoholism mostly during and after the tomatoes season, when they sell their produce in the market and have enough to enjoy. Young children watch their parents with all these activities but because of their innocence they are not able to say anything. This fills them with a negative feeling for their fathers and also they become prey to these habits when they grow up.

During our survey in different villages of in and around Solan district we found that many males have 2 wives. Children from the first wife are just living in the family with no attention. First wife does not have a say in the family and father enjoys his life with the second wife. This has a direct impact on the development of children, when they watch their fathers in unjust activities. Wife beating is a normal activity in such families. With low income in the family most of the basic needs of the children are ignored. There is hardly any environment in the family where children can study. In most of such cases children are the biggest sufferers and they leave their studies in between. Our Experience

Children Home SOHAMVISHVAS GHAR has evidently shown us that the problem of Children are interlinked with multiple complex issues in the family and community, primarily poverty, alcoholism, gender discrimination, and lack of education. Since we are fully aware that all the children can’t be kept in homes, which is neither desirable nor feasible. We have strong belief that there is an urgent need to integrate meditational skills in their day to day life so that they are in a position to convert their bitter experiences of life to better one. Keeping this philosophy in mind Soham has already initiated its community outreach programme where children, adolescents or young persons are to be given skills to integrate meditation in their day to day life in order to minimize their problems, deficiencies and deprivations. Once we reach to the children then we make efforts to involve their parents, families and schools in these programmes at second stage. Our initial experiments in 2 villages Kothi Devera and Keller in Solan block have given us a strength and courage to expand the programme in 20 villages. SOHAM an Innovative project to create a compassionate Community

The basic aim of the SOHAM project is to develop coping life skills among children aged between 6-16 years through Meditation so that they may realize the meaning of their life. The secondary objective is to involve parents, other family members and other social institutions like schools and Panchayat in the process of building life skills. Life skills means an inner integrity, honesty, commitment at individual level and a feeling of cooperation at the community level. The project will have following activities.

Organizing children at school level and integrating meditation for their holistic development. To train and develop group facilitators for conducting meditation with group of children. To conduct awareness programme for parents school teachers and key persons of the village. To develop a small course with clear, concise and communicative contents for integrating in their educational course content as extra – co curricular activities. To produce and publish a small booklet own “How to inculcate Meditation in a day to day life for Students, parents and school teachers.” To publish and disseminate learning material on meditation and life education.

What is Innovation?

We at SOHAM believes that innovation means the new way of doing things in simple and focused manner so that anyone can replicate without much difficulty. Innovation must demystify myths, break barriers and offer the convincing way of learning. We also believe that any innovation should compulsorily answer the 2 basic questions-WHY and HOW. We wish to experiment integration of meditation in ongoing studies on one hand where as we intend to bring back out of school children through slow process of motivation through Meditation on other.

SOHAM Centers.

SOHAM has design, develop and implemented a pattern of programme which makes education with meditation more relevant to people’s lives in the rural areas and gives them the insights necessary to take decisions and make choices about their livelihoods and better meaning of life as a whole. Therefore, the approach to these at this Centre began to transform into the sustainable, holistic, community empowerment programme has been conceived as SOHAM Centers.

These Centers organize children in each village and create activities such as telling them about hygine, placing stress on the completion of their home works, telling them small stories of character building, bravery, patriotism and Leadership. This helps to develop their overall personality by saving them the negative effects of social environment. These Education Centers will also provided by a small box library in each village and promote children to have a reading habit developed by distributing good books to them.

SOHAM Committee for the sustenance of the Project.

A committee for the above purposes will be created as SOHAM Committee. People from village such as Mahila Mandals, youth groups Panchyat and organizations nominated for it so that it gets a cross section of representation of whole village. Awareness camps will be organized by involving the committee so that at a later stage they may be able to sustain the activities. Schools Children of near by villages will also be involved in it.SOHAM wants to have meditation as a community experience in all our activities. SOHAM wants to create an awareness camps for the 20 villages in its periphery by organizing meetings with parents of the villages. It includes the basic rights such the right to adequate food, clothing, shelter, education, recreation, medical facilities, protection, care and development through small interventions like ,Set up of small box of library for about 100 books in 20 villages in and around Solan as to give access to children of the exposure of the outside world, Formation of children groups and their overall development in 20 villages, Character building activities such as by establishing a small box library in each village of 20 villages in this project. There will be a room which will be hired in the village.

Programme with Universities:

Be it old people, destitute ladies, psychological patients or anybody,SOHAM has dealt with the extreme groups like persons living with HIV/ AIDS in UP and found that the strength, will power, and health status of the people has improved or remained maintained at a longer period of their stay.

SOHAM has already started its interventions in Shimla University , Delhi University and Punjab University by taking up the sessions with the students and staff of these universities. The work of SOHAM has taken up by the students of Professional Social work personally by undersigned and Prof, Dr. Sanjai Bhatt of Delhi School Of Social work as its General Secretary and President and galvanized by Dr. Kavita Aggarwal as Eastern Zone Coordinator and Asst. Prof.Dr. Sunil Sharma Of Shimla University .

Human Aspirations since birth are pious and pure but with social surroundings they often get blurred with materlism, competition, self centered approach, jealousy, ego and anger. It has disastrous effects to mankind. The simple reason is that we forget our true nature of love and humane to all creatures. The sense of social responsibility towards our fellow beings and in all towards mankind can be regained if we spent some time daily on our self. Meditation has power to rejunvate and repair our inner systems of compassion, truth and ahinsa. It is our true nature. Take a few seconds and think of a world full of love and brotherhood. Can’t we spent a little time for self?

Come and join hands with SOHAM an experiment to enrich SELF with all Human qualities through meditation.

A move towards Statusless state: Seva or Service With Children. Seva or service ia an essential aspect of meditation.It refines the physical as well as spritual body.Meditation generates universal love. Service is the fruit of love which ultimately leads to peace. It helps in evaporating the ego. Every single child is a God's gift on this earth and he carries a light of that Allmighty. His basic rights of love and affection, education, healthy life, vocational training and recreation at all costs be saved. Apart from an education of outer world to gain life’s physical earning he also needs to be trained in to an education of inside. This education of self exploration requires a practice to be engraved in his daily routines.

In the life of a common child it is very crucial for his overall development but it is much more important in the lives of children who do not have physical resources. It is here that they need to be emphasized that they are equally resourceful from inside. God has given them a better chance to struggle from their childhood. They can better understand the powers of prayers which a normal child can not understand easily. It is their strength of struggle of existence which needs to be emphasized and cherished and rewarded.

These children are not cared properly for their inner defense mechanisms of life yet they have developed wonderful arts of their existence. Theses arts can be taken up for vocational training to help them to gain physical earnings. Through a spiritual touch they would be shown a path of self exploration. As Vivekananda has rightly said knowledge exists in every human being, it needs to kindle from some body to spread its lig