FFL Vrindavan is dedicated to the poorest of the poor, educating and guiding them in pursuance of a fulfilling life, enabling them to become exemplary members of society. FFL Vrindavan is also dedicated to protecting and developing Vrindavan’s natural environment.

Our work includes:

• food distribution
• basic medical assistance
• training courses for women
• drilling for drinking water and constructing water tanks
• assistance to the elderly and the disabled
• distribution of clothes
• environmental projects and education
• taking care of cows
• providing primary school education for disadvantaged children.
  

• FFLV photo gallery
• Rupa's Vrindavan Diary
• Send us a message
• Contact nearest FFLV centre
• Save our Girls Fund
• Donate

E-news is also a forum where you can share with us your thoughts, suggestions advice and practical inputs.
As the credit is entirely yours for our works and achievements, we will be very happy to receive your feed back. Please email to: info@fflvrindavan.org

e-News Archive

June 2007
July 2007
August 2007
September 2007
October-November 2007
December 2007
January 2008
February 2008
March 2008
April 2008
May 2008
June 2008
July 2008

Sandipani Muni School's new department, Early Child Care Education (E.C.C.E) got off to a roaring start with a traditional ribbon cutting ceremony. The venue was beautifully decorated with rangoli designs in various colors painted on the veranda. Amidst loud applause from audience, guest of honor, Mrs. Padma Seth cut the ribbon. All the students occupied their seats in their new classroom. Classes will be held three days per week in the afternoon during the next year. The session was started by Mrs. Padma Seth with an introduction on the need for E.C.C.E. Seth has worked in educational and legal advisory positions for many decades, for the Indian Government and the United Nations. In her professional role, she has traveled all over the world and she narrated many anecdotes about her work in helping teachers to understand how to communicate with children. Seth is an advocate of the 'playway' teaching model, which allows children to learn while having fun. By sharing her experience in spreading this teaching model all over the world, Seth motivated teachers to start thinking about alternative and modern teaching methods and the students will learn and appreciate more about this during their course. After her address, there was a `question and answer session´. Students asked many good questions about issues such as how to ensure that syllabus goals are met when using the 'playway' method of teaching and how to cater to different learning rates of children. Mrs. Seth answered the teachers´ inquiries and gave them a brief look at what they will be learning from next week onwards.

Farmers all over the world are increasingly disillusioned with the current popular farming practices. They are realizing that these practices are unsustainable for conserving soil quality, environment, nutrition levels in food and even productivity in the long run. The situation is all the more urgent in India where vast the majority of the population survive on agriculture. The real tragedy is that Indian farmers have traditionally practiced organic farming by default. However, under the influence of ìmported "modern" technology and the historical need for food security, Indian farmers successfully adopted the dangerous "high yield variety" seeds and chemical fertilizers. Moreover, they used them irrationally to raise productivity and income quickly and today, farmers are faced with soil degradation and face the ultimate danger of rapidly diminishing returns. In order to educate farmers about the imminent crisis to their livelihood and the need to bring cows back to homes and farms, on 6th August 2008, FFLV conducted a one-day workshop. The workshop was inaugurated by the Chief Guest, Dr.S.K.Mishra, Programme Coordinator, Krishi Vigyan Kendra, U.P. Pt.D.d.U. Veterinary University, Mathura. Mishra was joined by his colleague Mr.Y.K.Sharma, Agricultural Scientist, Veterinary University, Mathura; H.H.Bhakri Bhushan Prabhu, Head of Medicines Department, ISKCON Goshala; Dr.Ramesh Pal Singh, Agricultual Science Centre, Deendayaldham, Farah, Mathura; Dr.Mukesh Souni, practicing doctor in Panchagavya Medicine and Mr. Charan Singh, a local organic farmer. The Chief Guest, Dr.S.K. Mishra spoke about the food crisis faced by Indian in 1960s due to wars with China and Pakistan. He explained how the technology of the 'green revolution' had to be adopted due to the food crisis. He stressed that the time has come to quickly revert back to cow driven organic farming due to a second looming food crisis. Mishra cited alarming data on the deteriorating quality of soil and falling productivity levels. He pointed out how, by using harmful quantities of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, naturally fertile soil has been ruined. Mishra appealed to farmers to set an example by allocating at least a small part of their land to organic farming and then gradually expanding, so that others are inspired by the results and also undertake organic farming. He also explained how to make organic fertilizers and pesticides using neem leaves, cow dung etc. Dr. Mishra gave suggestions to improve productivity while conserving soil quality and also answered questions about the methods of curing various crop diseases in organic farming. At the outset, Dr.Mukesh explained the wide-ranging medicinal properties of cow urine and how to use it domestically as well in farming as pesticide/manure etc. Dr.Ramesh Pal Singh reminded farmers of the traditional religious, medicinal and farming heritage of Indian farmers that was organic and part of a sustainable rural economy. He appealed to farmers to revive organic farming and inspire others to follow in their footsteps. The last speaker, Mr.Charan Singh vividly explained his experience of organic farming and the benefits he has as received from it. The result of the meeting was that around 20 farmers agreed to set aside one acre of land to organic farming; FFLV will continue to support them.

Our 3 best Karate students have just come back from a 2 day Karate competition and grading in Delhi. They gave up their Saturday and Sunday to attend the competition, but all were thrilled to go to go to the big city to compete. The students tested their skills against competitors from all over the state and underwent grading exams where they demonstrated their techniques in front of a panel of judges. All 3 passed the exam and were upgraded to 1st division brown belts so they only have a few steps to go before gaining their black belts. One student, Pushpa from 8^th grade, defeated her opponent in the first round and made it into the second round, but competition was tough and no SMS students were selected to go on to the national level of the competition.

As a special treat for the children, a visiting Italian couple, Stella and Fabio organized a treasure hunt for the children. Children were split into groups of 5 and given maps to help them locate a hidden key, so, as well as having great fun, they were also learning orienteering and team work. There were shouts of joy when maps were deciphered and keys were found. In the secondary school, first place was taken by a 6^th grade team, who triumphed over the 7^th and 8^th graders and managed to find the key that their map pointed to in 18 minutes. Before the treasure hunt, there was a series of games to select the best 5 teams to compete in the treasure hunt. Each team had to pass through a series of tests such as making English words out of jumbled letters, guessing charades, skipping rope and sack jumping. After all teams were knocked out and the final five were selected, the treasure hunt began while the other children watched from the school verandas. The members of the winning team were given Rs.500 (US$12.50) and a prize pack that included snacks, a face washer, soap, shampoo and hair oil. The second place getters won Rs.300 (US$8.00) and third place got Rs.150 (US$4) and the prize pack. All prizes and activities were organized by Stella and Fabio, who said that they thoroughly enjoyed the day. Organizing a treasure hunt and games for 1000 children is no small task and we are grateful to our two Italian friends for their efforts to make learning fun. These kinds of enjoyable learning activities are very important for our children who come from backgrounds where tragedy is part of everyday life.

15^th August is Independence Day. On this day, children at SMS (and in schools all over the country) pay their respects to the makers of the nation. To celebrate Independence Day, there was a special program with dances and speeches by children about the history of India and the founders of the nation. The program began with the raising of the flag followed by traditional dances and singing patriotic songs. Several overseas guests who attended the program were highly impressed with the children's performance. One volunteer from England, Suzie, said, "These children are amazing". Suzie has been sponsoring one of our children for 3 years and has come to the school to volunteer for 2 months.

Janmashtami is usually a public holiday in India, this year it fell on Sunday but this didn't stop our children from coming to school to celebrate. Janmashtami is traditionally celebrated in the evening as it is said that Krishna was born at midnight so, on Sunday evening, SMS children, and many of their parents, came to school for a concert, after which they were all served dinner and sweets. Sweet prasadam, sponsored by Manish Ballav from USA, was also handed out to the hundreds of street children who crowded into the school to watch the concert. The theme of the program was 'children of all ages working together' and there were several items where children from upper and lower grades performed together. In one item, prep and 1^st grade children acted out the pastime of Krishna and his friends getting stealing butter while older children pretended to be village women chasing them away. The small kids did some really good acting because they really had a pot with butter in it to eat! Another highlight of the concert was the tabla playing. The tabla teacher, Damaru Prasad, said that girls mostly prefer dancing, so most of the students who select tabla as their elective are boys. Despite this, in the middle of all the boys was a little girl from 1^st class who was beating away at the drum with a passion, surprising everyone that being so small, she could play so well. The concert included several different types of folk and classical dance, including Odissy dance from Orissa in Eastern India and Dandiya dancing - a folk dance where each dancer has two sticks and taps them together to keep the rhythm. The performing students were all dressed beautifully. Many of the girls had flowers in their hair and ankle bells on and all had stage make up expertly done. Many thanks to our music, dance and singing teachers Ritu, Pratapana, Damaru Prasad and Sobha who put a big effort into preparing the children for the performance. People said that it was one of the best performances ever, and all are looking forward to the next big festival, Kartik, starting on October 12^th, when SMS children will perform for many international guests who come from all over the globe to visit Vrindavan at this time.

Spic Macay, an awareness generating organization for performing arts, and Manjari Kelkar a gold medal award winning singer from Bombay, made a brief stop on their tour of India to visit Sandipani Muni School. Kelkar impressed the children with her vocal range and invited some children to sing on stage with her. She was especially impressed with one student, Lalita, from 8th grade, who, she said, has potential as a professional singer. Sandipani Muni school academic director, Anita Khetrapal, said “meeting with those who have risen to the top of their fields is extremely important for our children because it gives them something to aim for. It gives children the feeling 'if they can do it then so can we'. She said, “our aim is that children will stop thinking, 'I will be a rickshaw puller because that is what my father does, and will start aiming to excel in their chosen profession. Exposure to the arts also gives children awareness of different avenues that are open to them besides academics.” SMS children performed some traditional songs for the Spic Macay group. Kelkar said that she very much enjoyed hearing these songs as they were different to what she is used to. The principal was very pleased with the children's performance, the way they behaved with the guests and how the session went. He said, “such a high cultured person has left our school with such a good impression of our children, it is a great day for our school.” The Spic Macay group visit to SMS was reported by several local newspapers.

Maha means 'huge' in Hindi and the last school day of August (Saturday 30th) was a big huge maha cleaning day at SMS. Students cleaned their classrooms from top to bottom. They cleaned the tops and bottoms of desks, cleaned out cupboards, polished windows and black boards. The children seemed to really enjoy cleaning and, as well as making their school clean, they were learning the importance of cleanliness and how to clean properly. In order to boost the educational aspect, slogans were put up around the school with messages like “mil jool kar sankalp uthao, parivaran ko swach banao” (lets all get together to make a promise that we will keep the environment clean). As a reward for their maha cleaning effort, all children were dismissed after lunch. Teachers used the afternoon to finalize their class attendance registers and attend a teachers meeting. SMS plans to make maha cleaning days a regular part of the school program. From next month, as well as cleaning the school, 50 students will go out to clean the streets around the school and spread the message of the importance of cleanliness to the people of Vrindavan.