Paper Bag Workshop

तथागत भगवान बुद्धांची वचने व त्यांची शिकवण आणि जेतवन मध्ये दोन दिवसीय व्याख्यान
Study and Meditation Retreat: Students of M.A Pali and M.A. Buddhist Studies (students visited the outreach centre Jetavan for a two-day intensive study and meditation retreat)

Visit of Students, K J Somaiya College of Nursing
Students of our Nursing College visit the community at Sakarwadi each year, as part of their rural engagement required in their curriculum. Jetavan provides a base from which these students survey the health and common ailments of the community and also prepare an exhibition with simple tips for better health and hygiene.

Bhante Dhammadipa's Retreat at Sakarwadi Bhante Dhammadipa, the Buddhist monk from the Czech Republic, with whom we have built Jetavan, visited us in November and led a meditation retreat for students at Jetavan.

Sunday Dhamma School

Dr Brijesh Singh, Asst. Professor in Yogashastra, Visited Sakarwadi and conducted aYoga workshop for Students of Somaiya Vidya Mandir School

Dr Brijesh Singh, Asst. Professor in Yogashastra, visited Jetavan and conducted a three days Yoga workshop.

One - Day Principal's Workshop

Sunday Dhamma School

Students of the Diploma in Buddhist Analysis of Mind and the P G Diploma in Chinese Buddhism attended a three day retreat at Jetavan, with Dr Supriya Rai.

The day began with with yoga and pranayamas, followed by metta bhavana and walking meditation. A study session followed, in which students made a presentation to the rest of the group on topics of their choice. After lunch, discussions on the presentation continued, with interesting perspectives drawn from psychology and therapeutic aspects, to social justice and engagement with community in modern times.

Women from our community participated in a trade fair organised in Ahmednagar. They showcased their produce of home-made snacks and the bags we make from used newspapers. Sonali Wakchaure, our supervisor at Jetavan, was felicitated by Government officials for the unique way in which they work to replace single-user plastic.

Faculty from the K J Somaiya Institute of Management offered to include women from our community in Sakarwadi in an entrepreneurship training programme. We had a very excited group stay with us on campus for the 2 day duration and here they are with our Chancellor, Shri Samir Somaiya, Bhante Dhammadipa and Prof Radha Iyer of SIMSR who is leading this training.

Students of the MA Buddhist Studies programme attended a Samatha retreat at Jetavan, led by Venerable Dhammadipa. Members of the local community, and the visiting students from the K J Somaiya College of Nursing also joined in. It was a powerful experience for all. He led the group through early morning Qigong, six meditation sessions each day interspersed with walking meditation, expositions on Yogacara method of anapanasati and very intense QnA. The day wound up with songs from Bhakti parampara by Ms Shruthi Vishwanath, a noted singer who specialises in songs of women saints.

Each year, students of the K J Somaiya College of Nursing visit our community. They visit us in 3 groups and do a survey of general health, hygiene and also of some of the more common ailments. This group was delighted to meet our President, Shri Samir Somaiya, who was visiting Sakarwadi.

Students and faculty of K J Somaiya Institute of Management spent the weekend at Jetavan. They did a survey of the goods sold in the nearby towns of Shirdi and Manmad yesterday. Today they met women from our community who are keen to use their artisanal skills to set up small businesses. Based on the inputs received, an entrepreneurship development programme will be created to address their specific needs.

Students of MA Buddhist Studies from our institute visited Jetavan and took some sessions on Buddhist teachings with the community. The experience was deeply enriching for all!

A lecture series on Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar's life and works is on at Jetavan. It was inaugurated yesterday by Asst. Prof. Shri Gautam More. Visiting faculty Shri Sanjay Pawar will take the rest of the lectures till Friday 2nd Nov.2018.

Jetavan attracts a steady stream of students of architecture the whole year round. They come from far off places, undertaking long train journeys to study the site for their thesis. A group of 9 students from the Smt K L Tiwari College of Architecture visited us on the 30th of Oct. 2018. They also visited the newly inaugurated Maya Somaiya Library at the Sharda English Medium School.

We spent a wonderful day discussing how the generosity and positive intentions, of people not just in India but also abroad, came together in the Jetavan project.

We had young visitors from the Sanjeevani Academy, Kopargaon, which is about 20 km away. Our yoga teacher had informed them about the unique design of Jetavan and that we had built it with reused and waste materials. They are sensitised to the environmental impact of human activity in the school curriculum and the information about our project was exciting. Ms Sonali Wakchaure, our Community Coordinator, took them around and shared the Jetavan story.

Geshe Lobsang Tenzin gave two day teachings at Jetavan, on 9th and 10th July. Geshe-la spoke on Healthy Body, Healthy Mind, and the next day on Human Values. His gentle, soft-spoken demeanour and the simple examples he used to illustrate the topic made a deep impact on everyone. Our President Mr Samir Somaiya was in Sakarwadi and he too joined in the session on the first day.

Bhante Dhammadipa brought special guests to Jetavan, led by Venerable Wei Wu, founder of the International Buddhist College in Thailand and the Than Hisang Temple in Malaysia. Our day began with meditation. Students of nursing also joined us! The weather is gorgeous and the sun came up as we practised qigong with Bhante in the courtyard. Blessed beginnings!

Students of nursing are required to do a stint in a rural area and from this year, a visit to our community at Jetavan has been made part of the curriculum at the K J Somaiya College of Nursing. The first group visited in October for two weeks and undertook a health survey in our community. They then addressed school children about health and hygiene and also put up an exhibition on health, hygiene and environment. The next group is scheduled to visit from 6th to 17th Nov. Watch this space for updates!

Shruthi Vishwanath, a young musician who has immersed herself in Indian folk tradition, particularly women's poetry, is leading a four day workshop on folk music for children at Jetavan.. Despite the heat, we had 20 children attend each day and on the last morning, they put up a special performance, attended by their proud families.

In a wonderful instance of collaboration between institutions of Somaiya Vidyavihar for our work at Jetavan, a machine was designed together with the Vocational Training Institute, with design inputs from the K J Somaiya College of Engineering. It will be used to punch slits in the paper bags we're making out of old newspapers and waste industrial cloth, reducing single-use plastic in the process and generating some income for the women who make the bags.

We are all story tellers. Whether at home or at work, whether we run businesses or are teachers, all of us love to narrate a story - and embellish it as we go along. Story telling has been an important way of educating and learning in all cultures. Connecting the story-teller and the listener much more directly than by reading out stories, this form of learning excites the imagination - leading to questions and discussions and sometimes the formulation of several, alternate, renderings.

We are sensitive to this aspect of education at Somaiya Vidyavihar and one of the initiatives we have started at Jetavan is a storyteller who will meet up with children every Sunday afternoon. India has a rich tradition of narrative literature, of which the Jatakas are an important component. Our storyteller is Shri Khale, from the Sharda English Medium School the Somaiyas run in Kopergaon. He will pick stories from Jatakas, as well as other collections - such as the Panchatantra.

We had a visit from 21 students of architecture at the Westminster University, London. They were accompanied by two faculty members. They had learned of our project as it featured on the cover of Architectural Review, a prestigious magazine in the UK. The students were in India looking at rural architecture and we had a short but very intense visit! They loved the design of Jetavan and the materiality that is its unique feature. The boys played cricket and volleyball with our children and the girls had henna designs made on their hands! The two male faculty members gamely had henna put on their arms as well!

The evening saw the visitors perform a song for the almost 80 children who come for tutorials to Jetavan. There was a fantastic atmosphere with impromptu demos of moon walking, head stands and all kinds of yogic postures. How precious is our space for facilitating these connections!

A group of students from the Pali Dept of Pune University visited Jetavan. They pursue a yearlong diploma in socially engaged Buddhism and were keen to see work being done on the ground.

Shri Sudarshan Bindal has committed to teaching Yoga at Jetavan over a three-day period, once a month. This time we had a really good response from women in the community and we hope to soon identify a practitioner willing to lead regular group practice.

Ms Kokila Deshpande conducted two workshops with us at Jetavan, training those who were interested in making bags from old newspapers. There has been a lively response and women have agreed to work together as a group, sharing tasks and also actively engage in sourcing the materials required. We are deeply indebted to Ms Deshpande who holds down a job in Mumbai and has given so generously of her time and her expertise. These bags are very special - they are not glued or stapled in any way. Waste fabric is woven through the paper to support and create handles; each such bag can easily carry a load of up to 7 kgs!