Posted: 15.03.2010

Posted: 09.03.2010

Manik
This is the story of Manik Chandra, a 13-yearold boy from India. In this video he talks about becoming a cricket player and about his religion: Hinduism.

This is the short version of a video Loka made in cooperation with Cultural Centre XL de Ateliers in Dronten, the Netherlands. Recently the video was shown to a group of Dutch children. This presentation inspired the children to think about subjects such as religion, school and food in a different way.

Posted: 23.02.2010

Mona
This is the story of Mona, a sweet and talented 13-year old girl from a village in India. In this video she talks about her dreams and eating-habits.


The story of Mona s the short version of a video Loka made in cooperation with Cultural Centre XL de Ateliers in Dronten, the Netherlands. Recently the video was shown to a group of Dutch children. This presentation inspired the children to think about subjects such as religion, school and food in a different way.

Posted: 09.02.2010

What is happening?
A warm welcome to all readers of Loka on Pifworld. Currently all work is continuing as usual. The children of Loka are happy and healthy. They are studying hard as in daytime they go to school, in the afternoon they study Sanskrit and in the evening an extra teacher comes to guide them with their homework. Besides studying Sanskrit grammar the children have also started learning the Veda's. The Veda's are a large body of texts originating from ancient India and composed in Vedic Sanskrit. The reason the children are learning this, is to keep the wealth of ancient India alive as it contains so much wisdom, and is a great gift to the world, to humanity.

About the development of the Centre of Knowledge: the architect in Delhi has started designing this week. We are looking forward to the results as the architect has quite a task, as the buildings are based on traditional village building and Vedic science, with use of modern techniques.

In the Netherlands Loka and Eekels Pompen recently started a special Christmas campaign. Eekels is a company that is involved in pump solutions and based in the Netherlands and Belgium. Loka and Eekels have been cooperating for over about two years now. For the Christmas campaign, employees of Eekels have sent emails to their contacts asking them to donate towards the Centre of Knowledge instead of sending the company Christmas gifts.
As a result, until now an amount of EUR 2825 has been raised, and this will soon be added to the Pifworld account. This is of course great news and it might be possible for Loka to complete the project on Pifworld on time. Let's hope and see!

I will keep you updated and if any questions are there, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Best wishes to all,

Charlotte


Posted: 07.12.2009

Donating happiness
Recently the company ‘Briefopbestelling’ (LetteronDemand) donated a large amount towards the realisation of the Centre of Knowledge in India. Loka would like to send a big THANK YOU to all the 86 (!) people who wrote a letter of which the revenu was donated to the Centre of Knowledge. This is a great example of how one person or one company can make a difference. Loka is very happy. Not only because of the donation, but also because Briefopbestelling is a special company. The people connected to this company write all kinds of letters such as letters of application and love letters. This work surely creates many happiness and smiling faces.
In India people find meaning in everything. For example, it is believed that money given with pure intentions, coming from good and meaningful work brings luck, fortune and happiness.
That is why the donation of Briefopbestelling is worth far more than merely its financial amount.......
THANK YOU

Posted: 27.10.2009

Posted: 13.10.2009

Posted: 13.10.2009

Manik Chandra
Manik is the first residential boy student. He is a pure hearted, happy and intelligent boy. He wants to become a famous cricket player after completing his study. His favourate subject is English.

Most Indian names have meanings. The meaning of Manik is ruby. The meaning of Chandra is the moon.
Posted: 04.09.2009

Mona Kumari
Mona is the first girl residential student. She is very talented and wants to become a good doctor after completing her study. She is also a great dancer and recently won a dancing competition. Mona is a star.
Posted: 04.09.2009

Land in Bihar 2
This part of the land will be used for the educational center, a garden and playing area.
Posted: 04.09.2009

Land in Bihar
This part of the land will be used for organic farming. Part of the harvest will be used to feed the children and part will be sold. This way the project can become self sufficient within the coming 5 years.
Posted: 04.09.2009

Small is beautiful
Since some weeks I am back in the Netherlands. At last a fast internet connection and the possibility of giving an update to the friends and people interested in Loka on Pifworld!

In the meanwhile a company from Delhi has surveyed the land in Bihar and the architect will soon start designing the buildings for the Centre of Knowledge. The construction work will be done with local and -as much as possible - with natural materials, respecting and inspired by local architecture. I am now in the Netherlands among others to work and raise funds to finance the construction work. If all goes well we hope to start building at the beginning of 2010 and start the first educational programme beginning 2011. Planning is slightly delayed. We realise more and more that if you want to create something for the long term, it takes time. Our focus is on quality.

The children in Varanasi are happy and healthy, they are now going to a school for general subjects and receive extra classes in Sanskrit every afternoon. And in this season there is also a lot of farming work. There seems little time for playing... Due to the limited space on our current location, only boys are residential. Just before I left India the first contract with the parents of a girl was signed: Mona. She is a star. It is quite difficult to find residential girl students in the villages, people are prepared to give their boys, but rather not their girls. So we are very happy with Mona, she will become residential as soon as we move to Bihar and until then we make sure she has best education. In Bihar there will be 10 girls and 10 boys residing at the Centre of Knowledge. We believe in having a small basis, because small is beautiful in every way. This way there will be a lot of attention for the individual child to develop his/her talents and discover the best in his/her own nature. Together with these residential students, the professional teachers connected to the Centre will give tuition to hundreds of children from nearby villages every day, this way the centre will have a big reach and good connection with surrounding villages.

I would like to thank all people who have contributed to Loka through Pifworld so far. Both in moral as financial support. Please do not hesitate to email me for questions or comments on the project. I will be most happy to reply.

Take care. Warm and kind wishes,

Charlotte





Posted: 04.09.2009

Posted: 05.07.2009

Posted: 24.06.2009

Beautiful Bihar
The last weeks we have spent in Bihar, purchasing land. After a year of intensive search in the area of Varanasi, suitable land to realise the Centre of Knowledge has been found in the state Bihar. We are acquiring land in the village Manikpur, Aurangabad district, at this very moment. Varanasi is growing fast, and finding suitable land turned out not to be so easy and the amount of NGO’s and schools in the area is growing so we started wondering what our added value could be. Bihar is an agricultural state and the demand for education in Bihar is much higher than the education provided. People from Bihar – if they can afford – send their children to Varanasi to study. It seems as if our aim ‘development of the villages of India through education’ can be brought into practise best first of all in the state of Bihar.

My feeling of Bihar is that it is excellent and wonderful in many ways. Bihar is known for its high criminal and low literacy rate. Not many NGO’s are working in Bihar. People and organisations are somehow not attracted to this state. Bihar is known to be undeveloped, but I would rather call it ‘unspoilt’. In Bihar, so it seems to me, there is actually peace. Both radiated in the unspoilt environment and through the innocent eyes of its human inhabitants. So much plants and trees are there. Little electricity and cars, and one can actually experience in Bihar an atmosphere of quietude. The people live simple and pure. Yet of course also Western influence has found also its way to these villages through television and mud houses are turning into brick houses as the man who used to be farming has now found a job being a cook in the train.

‘What is your feeling about rural Bihar?’ A man asked me. ‘Great.’ said I ‘You can learn nothing from the cities, we can learn everything from your villages’. More and more deeply I understand Gandhi ji’s words about the importance of the villages. In villages there is real humanity. Many people run from the villages to the cities. To work in a factory, to be exploited and loose all quality of life. But here in the villages they have peace, they seem happy and earn a living through hard but honest work that respects nature.

We are happy to have found land in Bihar, very happy. Besides its qualities, the problems that are in Bihar are often caused by illiteracy and unequal chances for women and men, for the wealthy and penniless. What will be a challenge is to not only educate the boys, but also the girls. The villages of Bihar are beautiful and pure, but also ruled by conservative thinking. Women and girls are to remain a life long in the house, serving its male members. Yet the girls are so eager to learn! Our work is being guided by Vedic (1500 BC) principles of ancient India, a time when women had a choice either for family life or devote life to scholarship and learning. How far India has drifted from its ancient wisdom! An experienced and knowledgeable Indian lady advised me yesterday to communicate to the people that we will only educate their children if a minimum of 60% of the students are girls. The power of the world may be hands of mainly men – but the behaviour of men depends on the women. Women are the unseen power behind the seen power and therefore their education is essential.

The plan is to start construction work in Bihar beginning January. The coming year part of the land will be rented to local farmers, this will generate some income that can be put towards the construction work for which we now need to raise funds.

We have received many wishes from people from all over the world and I am sure that thanks to these wishes we have eventually found land that is perfect to realise the aim of Loka and its sister organisation Sarvodaya in India.

I am sorry to say the connection to the website has been quite slow, so I was unable to send personal wishes to all the people connected to PIFWORLD who have contributed to Loka so far. Through this news item I am sending a deep thank you to all of the ambassadors, friends and donators of PIFWORLD for their wishes and support.

Pranam.

Charlotte

Posted: 06.05.2009

Interview with partcipant of project
Menu Roy is one of the village
children receiving care and
education from Sarvodaya, the
sister organisation of Loka in
India.

What is your name?
My name is Menu Roy.

How old are you?
I am fourteen years old.

What do you like?
I like to play cricket.

Where do you study?
The name of my school is
Udit Narayan Madhyamik
Vidyalaya.

In which class are you?
I am in class eight.

What is your favourite
subject?
My favourite subjects are
English and Hindi.

Why do you study?
I study to gain
knowledge.

What do you want to do
after completing your
study?
After I finish school I
want to become a teacher
in high school.

What is your strong
point?
To study.

What is your weak point?
I get angry quickly from
useless talk.

What is your dream?
My dream is to have a
happy family.
Posted: 21.04.2009

Land...?
For over a year we have tried to find land to realise the Centre of Knowledge. All the time we have been focussed on the area around Varanasi, the place from where we are working now. But in the last year so many signs have been there that we are not on the right path.... Many times we were about to buy land, when a dispute would start between the landowners and they all of a sudden would not agree to sell land. And it happened twice that people were trying to cheat using false documents of land that was not for sale at all. In India, not many things are clear like in the West. This is a big difference. Some weeks ago our broker died, people who we were going to look land with got confronted with accidents and deaths in the family. We went to look land and the village turned out to be named 'dead body'. Then we thought: ok, this is enough. What are we doing wrong? All the signs are saying we should stop RIGHT NOW. So then we sat together and discussed the options. Then we decided to start looking land in Bihar, the State that lies next to Uttar Pradesh (where we are currently working). Within some days we found land four times the size we planned for, and within the budget, in the village 'Manikpur (Manik means ruby, stone of the sun). The people of Manikpur were praying for a school as there were no (good) schools in the whole area.
The land we are interested in is big enough to realise the Centre of Knowledge and a big plot can also be used for organic farming. This means we can provide all vegetables to children from own land and also sell a part which will help the project become financially independent after some years. We all have a very good feeling with this land, and the village it is situated in is so quiet, pure and authentic. It is a traditional Indian village of which Gandhi used to say 'it is there that the soul of India dwells'.

We hope to complete all formalities for buying the land before the end of the month and will keep all friends, ambassadors and visitors of Loka on PIFWORLD updated of the progress. Let's hope after more than a year of intensive search the time has come to start realising the Centre of Knowledge and make the dream of many children come true........

Posted: 20.04.2009

Children receive scarves and caps for wintertime
Several women from Europe spent their free hours in knitting caps, scarves and jumpers for the children of Loka. In the months of December and January, the weather in Varanasi gets around freezing point. But the houses and huts the children are living in do not have heating and also they do not have sufficient clothes for this time of the year, as the rest of the year the weather is hot. The children were more than pleased with the winter woollens that were KNITTED WITH LOVE.
Posted: 20.04.2009

Bathing cows
We have two cows, they were donated by a woman in Mumbai. One cow provides the children with fresh dairy products. The milk of the other cow is being sold, which pays for the food and care of both cows. Hariom, one of the students, is responsible for the care of the cows as his heart lies most with farming and animal care.
Posted: 20.04.2009

Posted: 07.04.2009

Posted: 28.03.2009

Performances Republic Day
Message
Posted: 21.03.2009

Junior Class
Message
Posted: 21.03.2009

Hariom with the rabbits
Message
Posted: 21.03.2009

images from loka
Message
Posted: 18.03.2009

Happy to have books
Message
Posted: 18.03.2009

learning under a tree
Message
Posted: 18.03.2009

yoga lessons
Message
Posted: 18.03.2009

Activities on Republic day 26th january 2009
Loka Organised some creative events during India's republic day on the 26th of January 2009. Have a look...
Posted: 17.03.2009

Posted: 10.03.2009

Posted: 09.03.2009

Posted: 08.03.2009

Posted: 07.03.2009

Posted: 06.03.2009