History

The Sri Yoganand Saraswati Education and Medical Trust (the trust) is a non-profit organization committed to improving and extending educational and medical services to over 10,000 people living in Talangpur and surrounding areas. Since its formation in 1996, it has already had a substantial salutary impact on the community. Among its accomplishments, the Trust has organized health camps, provided monetary assistance for those requiring hospitalization and contributed to educational services for the needy in the community. The Trust has benfited over 4,000 people through such activities as conducting health and education programs as well as providing funding for surgery, clinical services, medication, tuition, books and school uniforms.

Encouraged by its past successes, the Trust is embarking on an ambitious plan to extend its services to other important areas to improve social and economical sustainability for the community through education, training, and knowledge enrichment.

The Trust established a community development center in 2005 which was renamed in 2006 to Hansa Community Development Center (the Center). The Hansa Community Development Center will extend its services to other important disciplines. These services will include those programs and events that result in the improvement of life development skills, health and hygiene habits, general career development, quality and extent of schooling and several areas of civic services.  

Current Programs

Motivated by the strong need to improve the general status of community sustainability and overall well being, the Trust has embarked on an ambitious campaign to establish a Community Development Center. The Center will become a hub of activities and extended services in the areas of health and hygiene awareness, education and economic development. The objective is to bring the region into the 21st century for social and economic sustainability through enhanced education, training and knowledge enrichment.

1. Beauty Parlor Classes for Community Women

The course in Hair and Beauty will open the new world of opportunities for the women of Talangpur village. This course will not only empower them, but will also give them the training and opportunity to contribute to the economic well being of the family.

At the end of the course, the women will be trained in following skills:

• Hair Style
• Hair Cut
• Plain Make-up
• Bridal Make-up
• Eyebrows
• Threading
• 5-6 types of Facials
• Bleaching
• Manicure
• Pedicure
• Waxing
• Applying Mehandi (Henna) in hairs
• Applying Mehandi (Henna) in hands with different types of designs like simple, bridal, Arabic etc.

During the training, the material will be provided by the faculty. This program will meet the individual needs and qualify the women to enter the beauty industry. Apart from hair and beauty course, they will also be trained in communication skills, i.e. how to communicate with the clients in a relaxed and effective manner, how to work in a team etc.

2. One Day Seminar on Life Skill Development and to Improve Parenting Skills

Children undergo many physical and psychological changes that are continuous during their years of growing up. When they do not understand these changes, they become frustrated and this is shown in terms of behavior, adjustment and emotional problems. Most of the time, parents are not well informed about these changes and as a result, they get anxious. The one day seminar is planned to make the community of Talangpur village aware about the challenges that are faced during the years of a child’s growth and development and how to find the solutions for those challenges. The target audience is around 125-150 people from the community that will consist of parents and their children. The guest speaker will be Dr. Rais Maniar, who is a qualified Pediatrician and presently, a dedicated counselor who deals with the behavioral and adjustment problems of children. There will be a power point presentation of approximately three and half hours by Dr. Maniar, followed by open and interactive session of question answer by the audience. This kind of interactive session will help the audience understand the whole concept in a better way by clarifying their doubts.

The topics that will be covered are:

• Communication skills for parents
• Different types of behavioral, emotional and adjustment problems in children
• Tips to parents to deal with these problems
• Imparting life skill education to parents and children for a better future

This will be a unique program for the community in terms that this kind of program has not taken place earlier in Talangpur or nearby areas.

3. Making Soft Toys

The course in soft toys making will open a new door of opportunities for the women, especially the young girls of Talangpur. Soft toys have a special place in the life of children. These toys are equally loved and adored by children as well as adults. For children, they are their best friends in their growing years and for youngsters and adults, the soft toys helps them in the process of beginning a relationship, by gifting them to the person they like. These soft toys come in many sizes. They are always in demand and if one thinks of starting their own business on a small scale, one can get good profit margin. Each toy can be made in couple of hours or in one day, depending on the size and hence one can earn on daily basis too, sitting at home. This can help a woman generate income for herself as well as her family.

The proposed course will teach the students three popular toys:

• Teddy Bear
• Monkey
• Dog

4. Summer Activity for the Children of Talangpur

Summer is that time of the year when children are mentally free after their exams and results. Engaging them in an activity that not only interests them, but entertains them in a creative way is a good process. Keeping this in mind, we have planned to keep the summer activity for the children of Talangpur. It is planned to have this activity on every Sunday in the month of May.

All the activities will be followed by the interactive sessions and group discussions. We also plan to keep some games and group activities for the children and their mothers. We plan to cover around 100 people in these Sundays.

5. One Day Program of Hygiene Awareness in Talangpur

Hygiene is directly related to the health of an individual. If an individual understands the importance of hygiene, this understanding can be transmitted to keep the village clean and free from diseases. Unhygienic condition of an individual or family leads to many health problems. As part of the Hygiene Awareness Program, the hygiene committee has planned a one day campaign to clean the streets of the Talangpur village. By this way, the community will be made aware about the importance of cleanliness and its benefits. First, as part of the pre program preparation, the volunteers from each street will be selected and will be given one day training on hygiene at the centre. The following topics will be covered during training:

• Importance of Hygiene
• Self Hygiene
• Keeping the house clean
• Maintaining the hygiene of the family members
• Keeping the area of animals clean
• Where to throw the garbage
• How to keep the bathroom and toilet clean

After that they will be monitoring the overall cleanliness of each house in their respective streets on weekly basis. The members of the hygiene committee and trained volunteers visited the streets of the village. They made the people aware, they will also clean the streets. This gesture will make the people of Talangpur realize the importance of hygiene. 

6. English Language Classes for the Children of 6th standard of Primary School who are learning Computers with us

Language learning for children sometimes becomes tedious and boring. Especially, for village children who attend the Primary School. There is ongoing project for the 6th and 7th standard children proposed by Computer Committee. They are given training in the basic course of computer. It has been found that they find it difficult to learn computers. Their limitation was that they did not know English. In these circumstances, there were two options left:

To install the software of Gujarati language so that they can learn computers easily.
To teach them English language.

The first option seemed easy on the face value, but if we think in the long run, indirectly we limit their learning ability and growth by installing Gujarati language software. If we do that now, they will never be able to learn a new language and will not understand the importance of English language for their better future. Hence, it is proposed to start the classes for the students of 6th standard in English Language. Following is the proposed curricula:

• Alphabets
• Meanings of the alphabets
• Phonic Sounds
• Two letter spellings
• Three letter spellings
• Days of the Week
• Months of the Year
• Seasons
• Colors
• Words used daily
• Singulars and Plurals
• Opposites
• Synonyms
• Basic Grammar

There are 20 children from 6th standard and they will be taught daily from Monday to Friday 5.00-6.00 PM. One black board, chalk and duster is needed for this project.

7. Dodhiya Dance Classes for Navratri

Navratri is the festival of dance. It is supposed to be one of the longest festivals in the world where people take part for nine nights in the form of dance called “Garba”. There are many forms of this dance. One of them is called Dodhiya. The community people came forward with the proposal request to have one month classes to learn this form of dance. This class will take place daily for one hour in the evening. The dance teacher will teach them for one month till Navratri starts. Since there is only one month left, it is recommended to start the class with immediate effect.

8. Garba Competition during Navratri

Navratri is the festival of dance. It is supposed to be one of the longest festivals in the world where people take part for nine nights in the form of dance called “Garba”. The community people came forward with the proposal request to have Garba Competition. There will be three groups participating in this competition: 

• Group-I: Team who has already learnt the Dodhiya during last one month in the Dodhiya class.
• Group-II: Young boys of the community who wish to participate. There should be minimum 15 participants.
• Group-III: Other males and females of the community who wish to participate.

Get Involved

The Center is well aware that undertaking this very significant program and enhanced charter will require the support of many warm hearted individuals like yourself for financial assistance, time and in-kind contributions to fulfill its mission. The currently available options to participate and support the Center include contributions for the following: