After its hugely successful Nrityameva Jayate event in 2016, the Boston Chapter of Sewa International hosted a similar event at the Keefe Technical School in Framingham, MA on November 5, 2017, for its fifth annual fundraiser. Over 825 people attended the event which raised over $45,000 to be used for various community service projects of Sewa International such as rehabilitating victims of Hurricane Harvey, Irma, and Maria, feeding the hungry, yoga for humanity and education of underserved children.

The Nrityameva Jayate’17 program was organized to promote volunteerism and create awakening among people to serve those in need. 286 Students from 19 leading dance schools of the New England area participated in a dance competition with spellbinding performances of Classical, Folk and Bollywood dance forms captivating the audience for seven hours. In addition, 15 students of music enthralled the audience with musical performances. The program received overwhelming support from the community.

The program began with a melodious rendition of invocation mantras by students of Poorna Chandrika School of Music and ‘deep prajwallan’ (Light of lamp) by judges for the event. The buoyant emcee Ms. Yogita Miharia welcomed the audience, the chief guest; Dr. Udit Batra, dance & music participants, the dance Gurus and distinguished Judges. She kept the audience engaged and appealed to them to generously donate to Sewa International for supporting the service projects. Ms. Taejasvi Narayan, and Ms. Raji Jakkam introduced to the audience each of the 41 entries in the event.

The program was arranged in four age groups. While distributing prizes to event’s youngest participants in the 6-9 year’s age group, Shri Ashwani Garg, VP of Administration in the national team of Sewa International, explained to the audience how the act of Sewa is a Yagna and thanked each dance participant and audience for contributing their ‘Ahuti’ (offering) in this yagna. He also thanked Mahadev Group, a financial advisory practice of Ameriprise Financial for their continued support to Sewa International. Shri Srinivas Bachu, President of the Telugu Association of Greater Boston, and guest of honor for the event, distributed prizes to winners in the 10-13 year’s age group. He talked about the importance of community service. The performances by participants in 13-17 year’s age group invited great applause from the audience. Ms. Priya Rathod, Director of Nursing Services at Amrit Sabha Adult Day Care Center and Guest of honor for the event, distributed prizes to the winners in this category. She shared with the audience how Amrit Sabha has had a long-standing partnership with Sewa International and conveyed her deep appreciation for the work done by Sewa’s volunteers.

This was followed by high-octane dance performances by the adult age group which mesmerized the audience with their talent. During the concluding ceremony, Sewa volunteer Mr. Subba Raju Datla talked about Sewa’s rescue, relief, and rehabilitation efforts to aid victims of Hurricane Harvey, Irma and Maria. He introduced the chief guest of the event Dr. Udit Batra, CEO MilliporeSigma a Life Sciences company of Merck KGaA. Dr. Batra congratulated all the Sewa volunteers for organizing such a successful event and explained that Sewa means performing service without expecting anything in return. Dr. Batra presided over the concluding ceremony and distributed prizes to the winners in the adult age group.

Sewa also hosted Rangoli and Henna (Mehandi) competitions during the event and several people participated in them. The program ended with a vote of thanks by Sewa volunteer Dr. Pramod Pandey who expressed gratitude to every attendee and participant in the event for supporting the Sewa’s cause. He invited the audience to join the Sewa team and become an active part of this historic movement.  

EVENT PICTURES (courtsey Subroto Mukherjee Photography )

Sewa International, Chicago chapter hosted Rishte Nate - a spectacular musical show on Nov 4 at Swaminarayan Mandir, IL.  The program was organized to raise funds for the victims of the recent disaster - Harvey, IRMA and Maria, and, Sponsor a Child - a program that sponsors the education of underprivileged chldren in India and Nepal.

Award winning participants from the musical school Swara Sadhana, and five dance schools Swaralaya, Utkalaa, Dancing Petals, Indian Dance School, and Nartan gave a spell bound performance leaving the audience mesmerized.

Watch report on TV Asia

On 24th September , Sewa USA Milwaukee Chapter volunteers, also known as Milwaukee Diyas organised "Adopt-A-Highway" community service event to clean litter along Wisconsin Highway 190 also called as Capitol Drive.

13 middle school youth volunteers & 3 adults volunteered to clean this stretch in 2 hours on a Sunday morning in scorching heat.

A feedback session followed the activity and all youth gave amazing reasons and responses to why they wanted to do community service. Some responses : 
1. "It feels good that's why I do community service" 
2. "It's the right thing to do , hence I do community service" 
3. "I need community ser ice hours for school hence I do it and also it's a nice thing to do" 
4. "If I were home, my mom would have made me study , so instead I volunteered to do community service and hang with my age friends" 
5."I don't know" 
6." I just like to do community service and hence I did it" 
7. " My mom told me to do it hence I did it" 

Everyone had a snack and showed interest in doing more such community service activities.

Sewa means doing service without any expectations . Join us by liking our page and telling your friends. More events planned for the community we live in.

Enjoy some photos :

https://www.facebook.com/MilwaukeeDiyas/posts/512167309137888

Sewa Cleveland organized "Yoga as Medicine" - a workshop for yoga trainers, physicians,  and other medical professionals seeking to be well-informed about yoga therapy as a safe, non-invasive alternative for health improvement.

After the workshop, participants were able to understand potential use of yoga as therapy and to consider further education and application in healthcare practice.

Sewa volunteers Drs., Rupesh Raina, Preeti Gandhi, and Reema Gulati organized the event at Metro General Hospital - a leading inner city hospital in Cleveland. Participants received 3.5 Continuing Medical Education credits (CME) - thanks to the efforts of Drs. Raina and Gulati. 

The workshop was well attended by 80 enthusiastic participants including 65 physicians.  The indomitable Sewa Cleveland Operations team of Viji Vijay, Anil Kumar Singh and Padma Jambunath under the able leadership of Dr. Hira Fotedar executed the conference logistics and marketing making event of Saturday, Aug 5.

Sewa International USA conducted a family workshop on College readiness for

current high school students and their parents on March 5, 2016 at Radha Madhav

Society Duluth, GA. This event was offered free as a service to the community. This

workshop was the part of series of workshops planned under the family services

project of Sewa International in Atlanta and other cities in the US.

Here is the video clips of sewausa volunteers working with the kids on 01/31/2017.  Public relations manager Kathy Stagmer also visited and volunteered to help kids with their maths.

Many sewausa volunteers visited SOS and worked with kids on their homework. Here are few clips from the homework session.

Sewa International’s Boston chapter conducted its annual fundraiser at the Littleton High School by way of a maiden dance competition on November 13, 2016. With over 700 attendees, 17 participating dance schools and 40 competitive entries, the 2016 fundraiser was a grand success. A total of $33,500 raised will be used in 2017 for Sewa International’s community service projects.

This dance for Sewa program was organized to promote volunteerism and create an awakening among the masses of people to serve those in need. When the event was initially envisioned, there was a search for a name that truly reflected the ideology of Sewa International. Since this was a dance competition and all the participants were competing with the real goal of raising funds for the needy, Sewa volunteers felt that the real winner was the art of dance. So we decided to name it “Nrityameva Jayatey” said Shiva Ramakrishnan, a volunteer of Sewa International. The event received overwhelming support from the community. The message of Sewa International’s all-year programs and good-cause has started to resonate with the community to the extent that many attendees and participants cancelled other commitments to commit to Sewa’s cause and attended the event.

The program began with a melodious rendition of the invocation mantra. Sewa's youth volunteers Mehul Shrivastava and Devansh Apte welcomed the chief guest Shri Anil Shah, the audience, participating dance schools and the Judges. Shri Anil Shah, Founder and CEO of MRCC Software, spoke about the importance of community service and thanked Sewa volunteers for their efforts to serve the underprivileged. He encouraged the audience to contribute more of their time and resources for community service. The dance competition which was organized based on dancer’s age group and dance forms (Classical, Folk and Bollywood) was then kicked off with the 6-9 year’s age group going first. Group exhibit performances by Kolam Dance Academy and Nidhi Tabla group, dance performances by Devanjali Senthil Garg, Sreeja Puthumana, and Varshini Arumugham invited roaring applause from the audience. Shri Girish Mehta, founder of ICC and member of the national advisory board of Sewa International, distributed prizes to winners of the 6-9 year’s age group. Dancers in the 10-13 year’s age group then mesmerized the audience with their performances. . The emcee for this part of the program was Ms. Shalini Kashayap. Shri Hemal Rathode, founder of Amrit Sabha – an adult day care center in Northborough and advisor in the  Sewa Boston team, while distributing the prizes to the winners of this group talked about how children in that age can make a difference in the community by their activism. Shri Preetesh Shrivastava and Ms. Yogita Miharia, emcees during the final segment of the program, enthralled the audience with their wit, humor and a strong message to get involved with Sewa. On the significance of volunteerism, Shri Preetesh explained how Sewa volunteers symbolize divine’s hands through which the divinity takes care of the needy. The competitions ended with high octane dance performances by the participants in the adult age group. This was followed by a prize distribution ceremony for above 13 years category which was presided by Dr. Java Joshi, founder of the Academy of Creative Arts. While awarding prizes to the winners, Dr. Joshi encouraged them to actively participate in the community service projects.

Sewa volunteer Dr. Sarva Kurella and Yoga Shikshika of Sewa Mrs. Samita Apte gave a presentation on various projects of Sewa such as Feeding the Hungry, Refugee Empowerment, Sponsor A Child, Arogya Mitra, Family services, and Namami Gange.  Along with the dance competition, Sewa also hosted Rangoli and Henna competitions and several people participated in them.

If women’s empowerment had another name, Nrityameva Jayatey would fit the bill rightfully! The panel of 13 judges and 6 advisers included 18 women. The program ended with a vote of thanks by Sewa volunteer Dr. Pramod Pandey who expressed gratitude to every attendee and participant in Nrityameva Jayatey for supporting Sewa’s cause, for without them, Sewa could not have achieved its goal for this fundraiser. Dr. Pandey also mentioned that Sewa Boston will fondly look forward to greeting each one of them in future events and invited them to become active members of the Sewa Boston team.

Pictures of the event are available at: https://photos.google.com

Sewa International is a 501(c)(3) Hindu faith-based nonprofit charity organization. Sewa International in the USA has 38 chapters in 22 states.Sewa is a word in Sanskrit language and translates to service above self - essentially Selfless Efforts for Welfare of All. Sewa International in the USA (started in 2003) is inspired by the international Sewa movement that began in India in 1989. Internationally, the Sewa movement is active in 21 countries