Our artists

The students who participated in children's day celebrations in the competitions for art, mehendi, rangoli and handwriting received their awards today. Congratulations to all!!!!!!!!!!

Dance, song and colour. Celebrating children's day.

Children's day was a day of art, decoration, colour, dancing and roleplaying. The children of 1st and 2nd class dressed up as characters from Indian history and mythology. Their lives were celebrated with song and dance. The boy is dressed as Jawaharlal Nehru, who's birthday is on the day of Children's day. At his behest India celebrates it's future, the children, on this day.

Mehendi (henna) art on Children's day

All of the girls seem to be experts at doing henna designs. Consider that in this program they have a maximum of 30 minutes to do both hands. They are pretty good!! Sorry about the quality of photos, you can't really see the intricate detail.

More Rangoli

Children's day Rangoli

Rangoli - a celebration of colour. Rangoli's are made with anything that is available. In the top one you can see they have also used stones, flower petals and dhal as part of the design

Primary school art works

Here are a few samples of the art works done by the young students on children's day

View of the school

This is a view of the school as at September 2011. For those interested Google Earth has updated their images of Jadan Ashram to photos from 2010. It is interesting to see the Om Ashram, Hospital and School. Enjoy.

Anahat nada

For those who were in Strilky and were listening to the satsang about meditating on the sound of one stick. These are the sticks.

King of Cool

The look with the glasses, fantastic

Back at school

I was back in school yesterday after two months in Europe. It is so beautiful to listen to the children sing again.
Hari Om to everyone in Europe and to all the kids who were in Strilky.

First day out

Siddhi, our new foal, enjoying her first run out of the stable with her mum Ganga. Beautiful.

Siddhi's first day out

The latest addition to our horse stable is Siddhi. Today was her first day out running around and boy can she run.

Smiling faces

Yesterday I was in school for the first time since going to Europe for two months. It is so beautiful to hear the children singing and see their smiling faces again.

Examination results part 4 - 10th Class

In tenth class we had a huge batch of 101 students. Of those students 95 passed. Three of the students scored above 85% which is a huge mark in the 10th board, up in the merit rankings for our district. Interestingly the 10th class is often the most difficult for the students to pass. The maths is difficult and those who don't have a "maths brain" have trouble. Once they get through tenth there isn't any compulsion to take maths so those students breath easy.

A mind boggling fact about the Rajasthan board 10th examinations. One million twelve thousand students sat the 10th class examinations!!!!!!!! That is only in Rajasthan state. The overall result was that 73.7% of students passed. Our students have done much better than that average. Well done once again.

Examination results part 3 - 12th Arts

The students of 12th Arts have outdone themselves. 51 students and all have passed with flying colours. The top student is Prakash with a mark of 77.5%. Well done to all.

Examination results part 2 - Science

The science results for 12th class have come. Out of a total of 39 we had 18 in 1st division, 19 in 2nd and two failed :(((((((( better luck next time boys). One of the girls, Manisha, managed to score 86.15% which puts her 11th place in the district. Outstanding. She scored 93% in Physics which is truly excellent.
Congratulations to all. Now we are waiting for the Arts students results to come.

Exam Results part 1 - Commerce

The 12th class results are coming one by one. Today was the results of students who studied in the commerce stream. Of our 36 students 20 scored First Division and 16 in Second Division. Excellent work!!! Congratulations to students and teachers for the reward for their hard work

End of year "Report Card"

Another year at our school has passed in the blink of an eye.

The year ended on a high note with our Principal, Shree SL Ojha, receiving the “Dronacharya” award for outstanding educational work from Udaipur University. It is a big award with people from all over Rajasthan being nominated and more than 30, 000 people at the awards day. It is just reward for his dedication to teaching throughout his whole life. Perhaps the greatest sign of his success is that he was nominated by students of his from 10-15 years ago who still remember his work. Congratulations Principal Sahab!!!

The highlights of the year have been many. Science students winning competitions, sports success, students getting in the merit lists in exams, our 12^th class students getting admission into highly prized courses such as medicine and engineering, Sanskrit students winning prizes…. The list goes on. But the real highlights were the harmony between the students, the concentration, unity and dedication of the staff and the joy of the primary students as the proudly showed everyone who had time to look just how much they had progressed throughout the year.

And, as my grandfather used to say, “in my book” the top highlight was a small but significant one. The other day I saw one girl from third class who had quite a severe hair lip, which was stopping her from being able to speak and eat properly. She had had two operations which had failed on it and was now eight years old, her family having given up. This year after a lot of talking we convinced the family to try again and found a great doctor, Dr Aagvani from Jodhpur, an expert in hair lip surgery, who did the job. Why I write about it is because when I saw her two days ago I couldn’t see the scar and immediately thought “ the success of that operation has to be the highlight of the year.”

Another favourite from the year was when Yashoda taught Avatarpuri and Rajendra Puri knitting. They loved it and a few days later I saw Avatarpuri gliding past on his “rip stick” – a funny modern skateboard – whilst  knitting a scarf at the same time – THAT is multitasking!!

To all those who supported us during the year from all over the world thank you endlessly. We had sponsors for school buses, furniture, computers, library books and somehow the miracle workers who run the Gyan Putra scheme managed to find enough sponsors for the 548 students who have scholarships in the scheme. For the statisticians amongst you we had 1263 students in school this year, 357 of them girls and 105 boys in the hostel.  In College we had 96 students, 49 girls and 47 boys.

We were  lucky to have some great volunteer teachers during the year. Thanks to Yashoda and Mark  who contribute so much not just to the students but also to educating the teachers, bringing colour and joy to the classroom. Lorena from Chile gave the girls a chance to practice speaking English even when the school day ended, Rodney taught the kids how to speak proper ‘stralian slang English pronunciashun and my Mum who I hardly saw when she was in Jadan because she was always in primary school giving stickers and checking notebooks!!

In the coming weeks we look forward to getting the results of our first batch of Commerce students, who finished 12th class this year. The results of all the students are eagerly awaited by the end of May. We are also starting up a new course in College ( Bachelor of Computer Applications) which will cater to the demand of students throughout the area and double the number of students in the first year of College. And in school we already have the daily line of parents and students coming for admission, which will go on now until July!

Once again thanks to all for your continuing support and looking forward to see all the students again on the 27^th June for another year of joyous learning opportunities.

Mahashivratri celebrations

Mahashivratri in school was a great event this year. We had a wonderful function at school followed by the boys dancing and doing puja all night. Such a great energy, full of intensity. You may notice that the Shiv linga was actually made by hand by the hostel boys from dirt and cow dung. They were working on it until four in the morning.

Brothers in learning

Thanks

To all those in Europe, Australia and throughout the world who help to support the school and the children's education many, many thanks. Yesterday we received a donation from the Verein zum Aufbau und zur Unterstuetzung von Erziehungs- und Forschungsprojekte in Indien e.V. (don't ask me to translate that!!) in Hamburg, Germany to help with sponsoring the Gyan Putra students this year. Once again thanks to all for the continued support.

Jai Hanuman

A 72 feet high statue of Hanuman Ji was just completed in Pali. The hostel boys and I went for the opening. Hanuman Ji, the embodiment of devotion and loyalty looked particularly imposing against the night sky.

Weaving artworks

Learning about colours, getting creative and having fun.

Sticking to it

Last week was sticker week. I had a lot of stickers that smell like bananas and strawberries when you scratch them  and spent three days seeing all of the Primary school student's books. Everyone got a sticker and were
extremely happy. Lots of fun and lots of smiling faces

Happy Dewali and New Year

From everyone in school and college we wish a happy Dewali and New Year to all throughout the world. May your new year be full of love, joy, compassion and success.

Enjoy!!

Practical Science

 

Our school students have just entered their models into the district Science competition and come back with first prize. The winning entry was an idea for stopping train accidents. Each train has a north pole attached to the front of the train so that if they come head to head they will not actually clash. The second idea was a flood warning system for the village. As you can see in the photos Swamiji is asking a lot of questions about the way that the models work.

Parikrama

Our horses have developed the habit of spending an hour or two per day walking continuously around the Bhakti Sagar, the hall where we have our spiritual programs, yoga,, meditation and prayers. They are free to walk around the ashram, which thanks to the monsoon rains is full of green grass, but they choose to spend their time .............................circling round and round the meditation hall. Special.