10th Annual Swami Vievkananda Jayanti Celebrations – Report

DISHA Charitable Trust for Value Initiatives, an NGO started in 2005,aims to provide holistic education with value education as the vehicle. The main focus of Disha is “Know Your Self, Know Your Country and Know Your Culture“. Taking inspiration and education ideals from Swami Vivekananda, a great visionary monk, Disha is successfully conducting workshops for the student and teaching community to make education complete and thereby taking the legacy of this rich heritage forward.

Since 2008, Disha is conducting Swami Vivekananda Jayanti to spread the message of Swamiji to the youth towards nation building. This year, being the 10th Annual Swami Vievkananda Jayanti, Disha celebrated in a unique way.

Two important features of the 10th Annual Vivekananda Jayanti are

• One-day Program and Inter-collegiate competitions for UG and PG students
• One-hour Interactive Sessions on “Vivekananda’s Vision – My Mission”

One-day Program and Inter-collegiate competitions for UG and PG students

Disha in association with Maharani Lakshmi Ammanni College for Women, Bengaluru, held the 10th Annual Vivekananda Jayanthi Celebrations on 1^st February, 2017 in the college premises at Malleswaram. The keynote speaker on this occasion was Dr. R. Balasubramaniam, Founder and Executive Director of Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement, which is a development institution engaged in a grass-roots approach to improvements in sectors such as health, education, and community development. Prof.  N.V.Raghuram (President, Disha), Dr.T.L.Shanta (Director, mLAC) and Prof.Vijaya (Principal, mLAC) also graced the occasion.

Initially an introduction to Disha and report of Vivekananda Jayanti was given to the august audience which was followed by the introduction of highly accomplished chief guest and other dignitaries on the stage.

In his address, Dr. Balasubramaniam stressed on the need to develop 3 P’s if we are to serve the nation by adopting the teachings of Swami Vivekananda – Purity, Patience and Perseverance. Asked to explain how one can stay inspired to work for the country, he advised, “Keep one foot grounded in the Bhagavad Geeta and the other in Swami Vivekananda and you will succeed in attaining your vision.” Using anecdotes drawn from his life as he worked to help his fellow countrymen inspired by Swamijis teachings, he sought to impress the audience with an awareness of the privilege they enjoy and the need to give back to society. To the majorly young audience who wanted to know the secret of how to fulfill Swamiji’s dream for the country, Dr. Balasubramaniam laid out an 8-step path consisting of having compassion, developing faith and hope, having a sense of humour and a positive spirit, inculcating a spirit of self-enquiry, fearlessness, a spirit of service and constant mindfulness. Students were very enthusiastic to ask questions to Dr.Balu regarding service, Practical Vedanta, Indian Philosophy and so on.

After the Chief Guest’s talk, the Presidential Address was delivered by Dr.T.L.Shanta expressing her views on the importance of character building towards the progress of nation.

Finally, Prof.Shobha Sundaresan presented the vote of thanks.

The keynote address was followed by Inter-Collegiate competitions for students. There was a very good response from many institutions of the city for the event. Totally, there were nearly 300 participants from 29 institutions to participate in 4 competitions.

36 students from 17 colleges participated in the Speech Contest in Kannada and English on the topic “Vivekananda’s Vision – My Mission.”

The Group Song Contest saw 25 teams from 19 institutions participate enthusiastically with a wide range of patriotic songs in Kannada and Hindi.

Around 24 teams participated in the Dumb Charades centered on the theme of “Bharat” and her monuments, natural resources and great personalities.

A Smart Phone User contest based on the theme of “Technology for a Better India” was also held for the first time to make the youth realize the power of social media towards national development and saw keen participation from 12 teams.

Swamiji’s message in short is “Be good. Do good.” As a part of “Do Good” activity, a blood donation camp was also organized in which over 70 youngsters donated blood towards saving lives.

Cash prizes and certificates were given to the winners

One-hour Interactive Sessions on “Vivekananda’s Vision – My Mission”

Swami Vivekananda, one of the greatest visionaries the world has ever seen, had a great vision for Self, Society, Nation and Universe at large. His electrifying words have motivated millions and millions of people towards leading a life of fulfillment by serving others.

Disha is celebrating Vivekananda Jayanthi since 9 years with an intention of spreading the message of Swami Vivekananda to the youth of this country. This year, being the 10th Annual Vivekananda Jayanti Celebrations, Disha celebrated in a unique way by reaching out to institutions to conduct one-hour session on  “Vivekananda’s Vision – My Mission“. The program was unique both in its approach and the message. The session included a talk on the Life and message of Swami Vivekananda as a patriotic monk for half an hour and the second half was dedicated to a video interaction which focused on the responsibility on each individual to make Swamiji’s dream a reality.

Disha, with a small but dedicated team, in just a span of 3 weeks, reached over 100 institutions taking the message of Swamiji to around 19,000 students. We reached to the urban, semi-urban and rural places. The institutions ranged from primary to the post graduate level (Primary school, High school, PU, Polytechnic, Degree and post graduate students). We even conducted a few programs for general public which included a yoga center, auto-rickshaw people and others. The response that we received from the management and students was amazing and we could surely see a spark in the youth to do something towards for the betterment of the society and thereby the nation at large.

The details of the institutions where we conducted programs are as follows.