This is guided by the constitution of the Charity when it was originally set up with the Charity Commission.  So the Charity comes under their heading of Educational Charity and we aim to share the teachings of yoga and also to support and enable underprivileged children by providing them with extra education which allows them to reach their full potential within their own culture.

As we have been doing this since 2006, there are quite a lot of children who have benefited from the extra education and some of them have gone on to university or college or received a government scholarship and continued into professional jobs as teachers, doctors, lawyers etc.  When the children are at university we continue to support them.  

The other part of our programme is to give the children good nutrition, because it is very difficult to learn if you are suffering from malnutrition and hunger.  So a part of our project has always been to provide a proper lunch for the children, and often milk and vitamins where required. In Sri Lanka we have an ayurvedic doctor who advises us on proper nutrition that is in keeping with local culture and tastes.

As a part of that, in more recent times we have been asked to support some childrens' families who are very very poor and struggle to feed themselves and we have been doing that for a while now. 

In Brazil we support two schools, one of which is also a childrens' home, and during the virus outbreak both of those communities and the ones in Sri Lanka have been unable to get food because the distribution chain broke down under lockdown and curfew.  So we have thankfully been able to offer emergency aid to those communities - which is a drop in the ocean when we think of everyone in the world in this situation - but we are able to at least do something small like this to help them.

All of the places we help have been visited by myself and others coming with me. We know the people we work with and trust them.  We are careful to find out from the people concerned what is needed in those communities rather than imagine we know what is best, and we gather information about each child and the families needs.  The local partners give us proper budgets and costings, receipts, photos and videos of the projects.  The decision about which projects we can support is taken jointly by all the trustees and the treasurer guides us on how much money we can allocate at any given time.

This work for the children is what gets me up in the morning and is a real privilege to be able to be a part of.  The work in India is on hold just now, but there are many, many people who are helping with the work in Sri Lanka, Brazil and the U.K. and it is all only possible because of the kindness and generosity of everyone in giving donations and their time, effort, love and support.  

Om Shanti

Padma