REBUILDING THE NATION AND REPLANTING THE WORLD.

50-Crore relief and rehabilitation package for Uttarakhand

10 Sept 2013, New Delhi
Mata Amritanandamayi Math announced two massive charitable projects: a 50-crore relief-and-rehabilitation project in the flood-ravaged state of Uttarakhand and a programme to adopt 101 villages throughout India.

“In Uttarakhand, MAM will build approximately 500 houses destroyed by the disaster,” said MAM’s vice-chairman Swami Amritaswarupananda in a press conference in New Delhi. “These will be the totality of homes destroyed in 42 selected villages in the districts of Rudraprayag and Uttarkashi.”

The Swami also stressed that MAM would not only be rebuilding houses in Uttarakhand, but would also be providing scholarships to poor children, providing pension to widows and handicapped people, building an orphanage/care-home for children who no longer have a proper care structure in place, and helping to empower women by assisting them to set up home-based SHG businesses.

The Swami also announced the advent of what he said would amount to the most massive humanitarian programme ever undertaken by the Mata Amritanandamayi Math: the adoption of 101 villages throughout India with the aim of helping them become self-reliant and thriving.

“In order to accomplish this, MAM will draw upon the totality of the humanitarian programmes it has established over the past 30 years,” the swami said of the programme, which he said is being called the Amrita Self-Reliant Village Programme (Amrita Swasrayagramam).

Both the Uttarakhand reconstruction and the 101 village-adoption programme will be officially launched during Amritavarsham 60 on September 26-27.

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MAM to plant 60 lakh saplings across the world

The Mata Amritanandamayi Math (MAM) launched a massive global afforestation programme GoGreen today when Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy inaugurated a year-long plan aiming to plant 60 lakh saplings across the world – marking the start of several MAM initiatives in the run-up to September 27 — the60th birthday of Amma.

“Environment protection and conservation is one of the most important services we can do for society,” Mr Chandy said. “It is laudable that the Math has undertaken such a project on the occasion of Amma’s 60th birthday,”

After planting a seedling in the Chief Minister’s official residence in Thiruvananthapuram, Mr Chandy said the Kerala forest department would provide six lakh saplings to be planted in the state by mid-2014.

Of the six lakh saplings, the state forest department would hand over the first 1.75 lakh soon. Subsequently, 50,000 saplings would be provided every month with the aim of meeting the target for Kerala by June 2014 — the onset of next monsoon.

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