Vedic Oasis for Holistic Growth

By Dr. Harish Chandra

HOUSTON: DAV Sanskriti School, the Sunday School of Arya Samaj Houston for age 5-13 kids celebrated its end of the year 2016-17 last Sunday with great enthusiasm. Three hours were filled with several show casing events that time simply flew away. Children learn Naitik Shiksha (moral instruction), Hindi conversation and choose an elective such as music, dance, Tabla, Yoga, public speaking, Vedic Math, etc. Audience was thrilled to see them performing on stage with confidence after a mere two hours’ weekly training. Their presentations on Yoga, Tabla, singing, and dance enthralled everybody, capped with a group song by the entire 100+ ensemble when every child appeared on the stage.

Teenagers forming the Arya Kishor Mandal (AKM) form the backbone of Arya Samaj for voluntary service. More than a dozen of them were awarded the President’s Voluntary Service Awards. Eleven of them graduated to join leading universities such as Caltech, UT Austin, etc. They with their parents were the Yajmaan in the morning Havan that brought in the special message for the Mother’s Day, too. They were excited to continue to remain bonded to Arya Samaj via the just-announced Arya Yuva Mandal (AYM) for age 18-30. Arya Samaj is proud institution to nominate one outstanding graduating member of AKM for the prestigious Posse scholarship.

Service without selfish motive is the ultimate teaching of Arya Samaj. In that spirit, the Sunday School kids and their seniors in AKM are associated with the Jeevan Prabhat, an orphanage set up by Arya Samaj Houston in Pondicherry, post-Tsunami. The annual event of Readathon inculcates reading habits with love and compassion for the unfortunate children in India. Monetary collection for 2017 surpassed that of the previous years. As they were to proceed to sumptuous meal, they were given food for thought that the classical Vedic Dharma is a proper mix of science and religion, enabling them to face the world with confidence. There was excitement among the parents to participate to yet a greater extent in the joint responsibility of holistic growth of their children. Some of them volunteered to be part of producing new reading materials. The event saw record enrollment of kids for the next year 2017-18 of the Sunday School and AKM.

Early bird discount is available until 4th June. Write to davssgm@gmail.com or call 832.874.3376 for more details.