Mata Amritanandamai Math to launch two major seva projects in Uttarakhand.

published on September 10, 2013

NEW DELHI: Two big charitable projects – a Rs 50-crore relief-and-rehabilitation project in flood-ravaged Uttarakhand and a programme to adopt 101 villages throughout India – were announced by Mata Amritanandamayi Math on Tuesday.

“In Uttarakhand, the Mata Amritanandamayi Math will build approximately 500 houses destroyed by the disaster,” said vice-chairman of Math Swami Amritaswarupananda here.

He said these will be the totality of homes destroyed in 42 villages in the districts of Rudraprayag and Uttarkashi.

The Swami also the Math would also provide scholarships to poor children, pension to widows and handicapped people, besides building an orphanage for children who no longer have a proper care structure in place in the hill state. It will also help empower women by assisting them to set up home-based Self Help Group businesses, he said.

Besides this, the Math would also adopt 101 villages throughout India with the aim of helping them become self -reliant and thriving, the Swami said. “In order to accomplish this, the Math will draw upon the totality of the humanitarian programmes it has undertaken over the past 30 years,” the Swami said of the programme called the Amrita Self-Reliant Village Programme ( Amrita Swasrayagramam).

The Amrita Self-Reliant Village Programme will ensure that each villager has a proper home and that the villages have school buildings, community halls and street-lighting, he said.

Other aspects of the programme will include establishing a free computer-oriented vocational training institute in each village and keeping children in school through the provision of a tablet-based after-school tutoring, the Swamy said.

Both the Uttarakhand reconstruction and adoption of the 101 villages programmes will be officially launched during Amritavarsham60 – the 60th birthday celebrations of Mata Amritanandamayi who is called by her followers as Amma.

The celebrations will be held in her ashram complex at Vallikkavu in Kollam in Kerala on September 26-27.

The Math has already built 45,000 houses in 75 locations throughout India as part of its ongoing Amrita Kuteeram housing project.