Uthishta Seva Puraskar 2013 presented to Swami Vivekananda Medical Mission

Uthishta Seva Puraskar 2013, was presented to Swami Vivekananda Medical Mission yesterday at a colorful function organized in Bangalore. The Seva Puraskar which consists of a shield, citation and a cash award of Rs 100,001 is constituted by Uthishta to support organizations working in the field of social service.

The work of Swami Vivekananda Medical Mission was started in 2002 in Attappady. It is a social service organization inspired by the ideals of Swami Vivekananda who urged the youth to serve the society seeing God in every human being. The activities of the mission was started with organizing medical camps in remote tribal villages. Later on, in June 2003, an OP with dispensary was started in Agali in an old building. In order to provide organized services to the poor, a charitable trust was registered in September 2004. A hospital building was constructed and opened on 5th June 2006.

SVMM also runs a school. The school which is based on NCERT syllabus has classes upto 6th standard. Free education is given to tribal and other poor students. This year the school has 185 students of which 65 are given free education. Apart from basic education, students are regularly taught yoga, music and dance. There are two centres known as Saraswati Sisumandiram to provide nursery care to small children from tribal families.

Mobile medical units, Village Health Work projects, Eye camps, Community Mental Health projects, Alcohol de-addiction campaigns, Sickle cell anemia project etc are some of the other activities being undertaken by SVMM. So far the Mobile unit has conducted more than 300 medical camps.

Currently the hospital has 10 beds for inpatients. The mission plans to construct a Women and Children ward, a maternity ward, a labour room and an operation theater. The construction of the new hospital building was started on 14th of Janurary 2013. The mission hopes to dedicate the new facility on this 150th birth anniversary year of Swami Vivekananda.

At the award presentation ceremony, an atmosphere of peace and tranquility was created by Sri Devi Bhajana Mandali with their devotional songs. The function started with the lighting of the lamp in front of a decorated picture of Swami Vivekananda. This was followed by the melodious rendering of our national song Vandemataram by the famous playback singer Anup Chandran. The song which was once the Mantra of India’s independence struggle, rekindled the feelings of patriotism in each and every heart. Pujya Sri Sri Ravishankarji was presented with a special memento, the famous Aranmula Kannadi by Dr Kamala Unnikrishnan on behalf of Uthishta.

The representative of Swami Vivekananda Medical Mission was honored by Sri Sri Ravishankarji by presenting them shawls. Sri V P S Menon, Dr Narayanan and Sri Premkumar representing SVMM received the prestigious award. The beautiful rendering of Nirvana Shatakam, the famous work of Shankarachaya, by Smt Shiji, brought the required spiritual vibrations in to the atmosphere just before the Satsang of the spiritual master. Sri Sri Ravishankarji started his discourse with a reference to the famous Upanishad manthra “Uthishtata, Jagratha, Prapyavaran Nibodhatha” from which  Uthishta derived it’s name and ideals. In his speech, he appreciated the work done by Uthishta and underlined the importance of participating in service activities along with spiritual practices. He urged the youth to keep aside few hours every week towards re building our nation.

All went back with uplifted spirits, and ofcourse the delicious laddus and a biography of Swami Vivekananda in their hands which were distributed as prasadam.

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