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The security of having one’s own house has a deep impact on human lives. In 2002, the media reported the suicides of a widowed woman and her four children in Basvangangur village of the Shimoga district in Karnataka, India. The reason was the failure on the part of the concerned authority to provide her family with a house. The Art of Living decided to prevent this tragic story from repeating in other families of the village. A 28-year old Art of Living youth leader (yuvacharya) conceived a project to build free homes for the homeless, fired by a desire to make a difference to the lives of the people. Within a few months, 30 families got a roof over their heads.
The 5H action plan for health includes educating people about general health practices and healthy eating habits, particularly children and expectant mothers. The 5H programme believes that an emphasis on hygiene is the key to eradicating the majority of health problems in many villages. Great importance is placed on clean drinking water, spreading awareness about and dispensing viable alternative medicines, educating entire villages in methods of disease prevention and organising free health, dental and eye clinics in rural areas with volunteer medical professionals.
Youth leaders in West Bengal organised Breath Water Sound workshops, and distributed medicine and relief materials to address the devastation caused by the 2007 floods.
Achieving and maintaining good health is difficult where there are inadequate sanitation practices and a lack of clean drinking water. 5H volunteers help create vital awareness about hygiene through a variety of programmes. Projects include finding and providing clean drinking water, developing clean surroundings and a garbage disposal system, and organising camps on personal hygiene, drainage and sanitation awareness. 5H volunteers have adopted a practical approach, motivating and helping villagers to build toilets, drill wells for clean drinking water, construct water storage tanks and construct garbage bins where needed. Participants are inspired to take responsibility for their surroundings and keep them clean.
In a village in Haryana, India, the Art of Living’s youth leaders worked with residents to clean the area’s drainage systems and streets. They created a system of garbage collection and recycling to sustain sanitary conditions. Today, the garbage disposal system has created a cleaner environment and improved the health of the populace.
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Implementing the 5H Programme in 35,712 villages |
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Giving a New Direction by training 67,629 youth leaders |
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Creating Stress-free Individuals by conducting 1,25,436 workshops |
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Fostering Better Ties among people through 66,315 community gatherings |
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Promoting Better Health by 24,466 medical camps, 87 primary healthcare centres |
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Giving a Stable Life by gifting 1,535 homes |
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Providing Water Supply through 1,060 borewells |
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Creating a Healthier Environment by planting 22,57,914 trees |
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Creating Employment Opportunities through 2,915 Self Help Groups |
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Developing a Cleaner Society by carrying out 49,291 cleaning camps, constructing 5,671 toilets and 528 new drains |
The core of all the service programmes is human values – friendliness, caring, respect and trust. Through the projects, volunteers actively promote these values. Local community members embrace this unique attitude through integrated interactions, motivating each other and spreading the spirit of service with love. This attitude is the force behind the success of the 5H Programme.
In Mid-March 2007, violence broke out in Nandigram, West Bengal following a dispute over acquisition of land for an industrial complex. The conflict got polarised along political and communal lines, leading to the loss of many lives, including those of women and children. In an atmosphere of tension and distrust, youth leaders from the Art of Living brought together residents to attend stress-elimination workshops. Community gatherings were organised to build trust and create a sense of belongingness. These initiatives helped restore a sense of normalcy.
Through an education that instils honour for diversity and a sense of belonging to the world, the 5H Programme creates a platform for sharing the common moral and spiritual values inherent in all religions. The programme provides cultural exposure to diverse populations through group meetings and community gatherings.
In a village in Haryana, India, youth leaders from the Art of Living brought together members of different castes, including Dalits, the traditionally marginalised section of Indian society. The group, some of whom interacted with members of other castes for the first time, deliberated on community development projects, resulting in unprecedented camaraderie.
The 5H programme is rewriting the story of rural India. From being dependent on outside resources, villages are now riding high on a new-found freedom: economic security, self-sufficiency, better health and empowered individuals who are confident of being agents of change.
The metamorphosis of a village called Kapsi in Maharashtra following the Art of Living’s intervention is one such case study.
A four-year drought in Kapsi, between 2000 and 2003, had worsened the economic conditions of its residents. The Art of Living intervened by initiating the 5H programme in the village in 2003, and has since revived the village’s fortunes.
Twenty-eight check dams were built to ensure rainwater is collected for future agricultural use, which helped raise the water table. Today, the village can withstand two years of no rainfall. Regular Breath-Water-Sound workshops greatly reduced alcoholism in the village. In order to help women who suffer from respiratory problems due to coal-fired stoves, the Art of Living worked with local leaders to set up a biogas plant as a clean alternative and built smoke-less stoves. Many of the houses had no toilet, thus leading to severe health repercussions, particularly for the women folk. The Art of Living built over 100 toilets and every home in the village now has an individual toilet.
The use of toilets required a major shift in the mindset of the villagers towards personal hygiene. “It is easy to construct a toilet, but it is difficult to motivate the villagers to utilise them due to the old habit of answering nature’s call in the open,” says Dr Madhav Pol, who co-ordinated the project. Over 3,575 sessions have been conducted to spread the importance of personal hygiene and they have served to educate the villagers about the disadvantages of the age-old method of defecating in the open.
Thanks to this initiaitive, villagers are seeing a significant improvement in health.
The Art of Living Art of Living’s sanitation project has helped eight villages from Maharashtra win the Government of India’s Nirmal Gram Puraskar award given to villages which achieve total hygiene and sanitation. Under the project, 5,671 toilets have been built across the country.
Realising that a breakdown in agricultural economy of the area was having a far-reaching impact on the socio-economic conditions of the villages, the Art of Living brought in experts from the Sri Sri Institute of Agricultural Sciences and Technology to educate farmers from Kapsi and neighbouring villages on better farming practices. The techniques of chemical-free and zero-budget farming have improved the yield of sugarcane and other crops in the area. Improving yield has not only led to better earnings for farmers, but also instilled self-confidence in them.
 This turnaround is pronouncedly visible in the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra, India which until recently witnessed large-scale suicides by distressed farmers. Crop failure and rising loan liabilities had led to one farmer suicide every eight hours. Through a multi-pronged intervention, the Art of Living effectively cracked the complex conundrum of farmer suicide in India.
Combining training in chemical-free farming with breath-based stress-elimination techniques, the Art of Living infused a new desire to live in suicide-prone farmers. Over 509 villages have benefitted from Art of Living’s intervention. Not a single case of suicide has been reported from these villages since Art of Living began its intervention. This has drawn all-round appreciations, particularly from the state government.
Like Kapsi and Vidarbha, there are thousands of villages across India and rural communities across the globe that stand testimony to the success of the Art of Living’s community empowerment initiatives.
Under Sri Sri Rural Development Programme (SSRDP), the Art of Living runs several programmes to empower rural communities and bridge the needs and resources between the urban and rural populace. The outcome of these initiatives is the strengthening of the rural economy in the immediate future and a strong national economy in the long run.
Established in the year 2001, the underlying philosophy of the programme is to share the burden and responsibility of poor villagers by helping them become self-sufficient and self-reliant. The immediate outcome of making villages self-reliant is the decrease in the number of villagers migrating to towns and cities in search of employment. This not only reduces the heavy strain on urban infrastructure, but also saves migrants from getting trapped in a web of urban crime.
To train rural youth, the Art of Living offers a wide range of training modules, both in modern vocations such as manufacturing and service sector, and traditional skills such as bee water harvesting.
The progress of a community requires the contribution from each individual. In an atmosphere of communal tensions and society divides, progress and unity are the greatest casualties. This is an enormous challenge for India, especially since many communal divides are long-standing. The Art of Living has proved to be a significant bridge between estranged communities.
By bringing together individuals of all backgrounds through stress-elimination programmes and community gatherings, religious and social differences are forgotten. The larger good of society is given a priority.
When riots broke out between Hindus and Muslims in Gujarat in 2002, trained volunteers of the Art of Living carried out relief operations and trauma care in the worst affected areas. Art of Living volunteers worked with the local community leaders to restore harmony among people from different communities. Following one such engagement with five Maulvis and 35 leading Muslim leaders from Godhra, the worst-affected area during the riots, violence stopped in the area.
The Art of Living is also working to end discrimination on the basis of birth and provide equal opportunity to all. In March 2007, the Art of Living initiated the ‘Truth and Reconciliation’ conference to bring together decision makers, leaders and representatives of mainstream and the Dalit communities. The outcome was a seven-point action plan which is being implemented at the grassroots level. In many areas, estranged communities have come together in unprecedented gestures, paving the way for a socially progressive community.
Through the 5H Programme, the Art of Living has made a significant impact in volatile areas of the north east of India, which have witnessed violence and militancy for over two decades. Not only are youth leaders helping to rebuild the infrastructure in these areas, but also bridging the divides between strained communities.
The Art of Living’s empowerment initiatives touch all sections of society. Hence, there is special emphasis on children, women and disadvantages sections of society. Addressing the problems of poverty and social development at their roots, the Art of Living works to empower marginalised sections of society through education. Accordingly, it runs 86 schools in the tribal and rural belts of India. These schools provide free quality and value-based education to children from the marginalised sections of society, saving thousands of them from being forced into child labour.
Education forms a key component of the Art of Living’s continuous endeavours for the welfare of children from all sections of society. It has also initiated special projects to support young victims of violent conflicts and natural disasters.
In acknowledgment of the role women play in building a healthy and happy society, the Art of Living has launched numerous initiatives to empower them and reduce their economic dependencies.
The Art of Living is also engaged in empowering and preserving indigenous and minority groups, referred to as tribals in India. These groups have their unique racial origins, culture and lifestyle, which are now in danger of being lost owing to unplanned developmental efforts. Apart from being deprived of the benefits of development, these groups are also alienated from the mainstream. This has made these groups easily susceptible to being misguided by armed revolutionary groups such is Maoists and other insurgent groups. Through its 5H Programme, the Art of Living is working to improve their standard of living and to create awareness among them about the richness of their own culture.
Apart from leveraging the power of education to bring about social change through numerous schools, the Art of Living is also taking up several projects to empower them economically without disturbing their traditional ways of life.
These initiatives are mainly concentrated in Indian states with large tribal population such as Jharkhand, Chhatishgarh, Orissa and north eastern states. The initiatives in the militancy-hit Nagaland have made a big difference to the tribal population of the state.
The success of the 5H programme is credited to the Youth Leadership Training Programme (YLTP). Giving a direction to rural youth and honing their leadership qualities, YLTP inspires people to become proactive agents of change. In Kashmir, many misguided youth shunned militancy and embraced a non-violent way of life after doing the programme. Many youth are able to drop substance and alcohol abuse. “After doing the programme, we realised we were forced into a wrong path. Now we are confident that we will be able to solve our problems peacefully,” says Khalid from Srinagar.
Women are, especially, encouraged to take up community welfare activities. Pinki Patil from Karnataka, India, led a housing rehabilitation project for an entire village. She credits her ability to the YLTP. “Before doing the programme, I used to be very lazy and very shy. The solid training I received through YLTP has prepared me to face any challenge,” she says.
Not only in India, but the world over, this programme is helping youth realise their potentials. In Haiti, youth leaders trained under YLTP are leading a crucial reforestation project. “I learned that I have the majority of the qualities that it takes to be a leader. I see how reforestation is the future of the country and necessary to prevent erosion and all the disasters that Haiti goes through almost every year,” says Rose Laure from Les Cayes, the southern part of Haiti.
Individual transformation is credited to individual empowerment the YLTP training brings. “I experienced that there are a lot of good things I can do, like letting go of things like thinking too much about the past, stress, anger and depression. I have gained a smile back in my life. I’ve just learnt to live my life golden,” shares Lonwabo from South Africa.
Through individual empowerment and community-driven measures, the Art of Living is leading sustainable development for grassroots communities across the globe.
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