The Gnostic Centre’s workwith Economically Weaker

Section

The chairperson of the Gnostic Centre is especially focused and sensitive to the girl child of under-privileged background getting a good education.

She has started a scheme for the children of the staff members of the Gnostic Centre and the horse farm where she works, which also houses a very large uneducated labour force.

The Gnostic Centre

Usha Stud Farm

One of the initiatives she has launched is that any staff member who wants to educate her girl child will be given a free scholarship for their entire education. This is especially important in a society where the rural folk do not send their girls to school, and give preference to the boy. 

This is specially significant in a country and state (Haryana, India) where the girl child is either killed at birth or aborted earlier, and has a skewed male-female ratio of 1000 boys to 867 girls.  

To send a strong message to all the staff, recently the chairperson took the decision to send the young three-year old daughter of her personal staff to L'avenir (The Gnostic Centre’s integral education preschool).

At the Gnostic Centre, we believe in the adage: 'Charity begins at home’, therefore we have begun with all the people working at the Centre and close by in the locality. The following are some of the actions taken by us…  Educational funding & School

enrolment 1

This is important as it helps social sensitivity, integration and gives a wonderful opportunity for the parents and child to learn and cultivate better and healthier living habits. So far the experiment has been beneficial to the family, teachers and other students in L'avenir.  

L’avenir school, a unit of The Gnostic Centre

The Centre encouraged the head-gardener to send his young son to a school, instead of having him loiter around and get into mischief. The Centre financed his education and enrolled him in a local school. After the first year, it was clear that the son had a good potential and the local school was neither able

Molahera School, Gurgaon

to nurture it, nor was it able to provide the right kind of milieu and there were signs of the boy getting into undesirable company.

2

The Centre took the initiative to identify a good, conducive boarding school, which was part of a larger community based on spiritual values. The Centre encouraged the father of the boy (the head-gardener) to visit the school personally (in Central India) and assure himself of its quality and appropriateness for his son’s future.

Ma Mandir School, Madhya Pradesh

That done, the Centre enrolled the boy into the school and has since been funding his education (including board and lodging). The boy is now his second year at the school.

In order to encourage one of its cook-cum-cleaning staff to send his daughters to school as well (and not just his son), the Centre enrolled them in a local school and paid for their educational expenses. As that school was not very conducive, later the girls were enrolled in a better (more expensive) school and the Centre continues to pay for their education.

Shiva School, Bijwasan, Delhi

3

The children of some other staff members (gardeners, cleaning staff) too were enrolled into a local school by the Centre so that they would learn and use their time well instead of loitering about and getting into bad company.

4

In the case of the Centre’s main cook, whose teen-aged daughters (based in the village) were seeking to better themselves, the Centre enrolled them in a boarding school (in Central India) at its own cost. When that experiment failed (as the girls were quite grown-up and could not adjust), and the girls chose to go back to their village, the Centre began helping out by providing an allowance to the cook (besides his monthly salary) for the welfare of his daughters – not giving it in his

School campus at Ratlam, Madhya Pradesh

hand, but depositing it into an account so that it would be used only for his daughters when needed (and not, as is so often the case, spent on his sons instead). 

5

Vocational training & Value education The Centre also enrolled the head-gardener’s elder son into a vocational training course run by a Trust based on spiritual values, and providing board, lodging and basic education, for free. This was to help the boy develop not only his skills, but also to imbibe value education, and develop his thoughts, values and culture, and to live in a community dedicated to higher ideals.

6

Sri Aurobindo Ashram, New Delhi

This boy has completed his training (and is also pursuing higher studies through distance education), and has opted to stay back for another training course in the community

The son of the Centre’s main cook was also enrolled in the same Trust for vocational training. After completing his course he worked with the Centre for a few months and then found employment elsewhere. He is a self-earning youth now.

7

Literacy, Art & Culture classes 

The Centre organized evening classes for the staff’s children who were not enrolled in school, in order to help them use their time well, and learn the basics of hygiene, and literacy, art, etc. 

8

The Centre organized literacy, culture, value education classes in the evening for its staff. Those who were literate or semi-literate were allocated the responsibility of teaching those who were not. Those who were literate were given storybooks (with good cultural values) to read, in order to develop their minds, language skills, culture. 

The Centre also organized evening sports for its staff in order to build team spirit, physical health through exercise and collective games. 

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Financial Aid Whenever there is an emergency (medical, death), or on special occasions (marriages, purchase of property), the Centre provides financial aid to the staff members. It also extends the use of its resources and personal care too when required – for instance, when the driver’s young daughter had to be hospitalized and later passed away, or when the Centre’s main cook had to be hospitalized for a gall bladder surgery. 

Interest-free loans are extended to the staff in times of need. 

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Upcoming

The Centre has set up two projects away from Delhi, in village areas – and in both these work shall be taken up with the local community based on their needs for education for the girl child, vocational training for local women, rainwater harvesting, soil rejuvenation, organic farming, etc. 

The Monk’s Retreat, Uttarakhand (northern India) in a Himalayan village, at

7200ft.

Academy of the Future, in Rajasthan (western India) in a village at Aravali

foothills