Pehel – an Initiative for a better society
Last year, we raised $2200 which were able to sponsor annual education for 23 kids.
Last year’s report of VidyaDaan project.
This year’s campaign video -
Author Archive
Holi 2012
As our annual tradition, we all went to the Golden Gardens Beach on March 17 to celebrate Holi – the festival of colors. Around 40 people braved the initial cold weather to play some games like kho-kho, kabaddi, lock and key etc. and follow it up with smearing colors over each other. Seeing the enthusiasm among the people, the Sun decided to come out in its full glory. Quite a few of the participants also decided to take a dip in the cold salty waters and then run back to the bonfire 
Annual Surayanamaskar Yogathon
To culminate the 2 week-long Suryanamaskar yagna (http://www.hssus.org/sny), Hindu Yuva is organizing a 2 hour yogathon. The idea is to come together and do as many Suryanamaskars as we can and test our fitness levels
Time: 10am to 12pm
Day: Saturday, Jan 28, 2012.
Where: UW Tower Cafeteria (South), 43rd St Brooklyn Ave NE Seattle
Besides the fact that suryanamaskars are totally awesome, here are some more reasons to attend:
a) Amazing views of our beautiful Seattle from the venue
b) Alysha Greig, a certified yoga instructor from Yogis at UW, will be there to guide us through the event.
Hope to see you all there!
Dandiya Night 2011
ONLINE TICKET SALES HAVE CLOSED. PLEASE BUY YOUR TICKETS AT THE EVENT ITSELF.
PARKING: The UW Tower parking is free for the Dandiya Night attendees. Please mention that you are there for this event in case anybody asks you for the parking fee there.
Highlights:
- FREE LESSONS by UW’s ONLY Garba/Dandiya team, Dangeraas Dawgs.
- An amazing venue that offers an unmatched view of the Seattle skyline
- Power packed sound system and awesome Indian tunes (Traditional+Bollywood)
- Tasty Indian Snacks included in the ticket
- Prizes over $300
- Online Raffle
- Free gift coupons with ticket
- Proceeds go towards supporting projects undertaken by the NGOs Sewa International and Yuva for Sewa
So grab those kurtas and ghaghra-cholis and join us for an amazing night of dancing … Desi style!
Here‘s some more information on Dandiya, a beautiful ancient Indian Dance form.
Date and Time: Saturday, November 5 · 7:30pm - 10:30pm
Venue: UW Tower Cafetaria South
Tickets:
UW Students/Staff: $10 advance, $12 at the door
Others: $15 advance, $20 at the door
Lecture Demonstration on Indian Classical Music
Hindu YUVA invites you all to a Lecture-Demonstration of Indian classical music (both Carntic and Hindustani styles) conducted by Dr. Deepak Paramashivan.
Dr. Paramashivan will describe basic concepts of Raga, Tala (beats) and the commonality and differences between the North Indian (Hindustani) and South Indian (Carnatic) styles. Demonstrations will be given using vocal music and Sarangi (a bowed stringed instrument.)
*** No prior knowledge of Indian classical music is necessary. ***
Time: 5pm to 8pm
Day: Saturday, October 1, 2011
Place: Savery Hall #260, University of Washington (Location on map)
A brief bio of Dr. Paramashivan: Born into a family of musicians, he started his training in Carnatic vocal and Veena at a tender age of five from Vidushi. R. Vasanthalakshmi of Mysore. Later he underwent rigorous training in the traditional Mysore style of Veena under Vid. D. Balakrishna. He is trained in Sitar in Vilayat Khani style for more than 10 years by Pt. Jayant Kumar Das. He learnt Hindustani vocal and Sarangi for 15 years from Ustad. Faiyaz Ahmed Khan of Dharwad. Currently Deepak is learning sarangi under the Sarangi maestro Padma Vibhushan Pt. Ram Narayan.
Dr. Paramashivan started giving public performances in Carnatic music at the age of 8. He has worked as an associate music director for Kannada cinema and tele-serials and extended vocal support and played sitar, veena and sarangi for movies, tele-serials, dance ballets and other musical projects. He has given numerous performances at AIR, and Doordarshan. On sarangi, he has given several solo performances, accompaniment support to leading vocalists and provided lehra saathi for tabla, sufiana and kathak dance shows.
HinduYUVA’s Annual Movie Nite for Charity: Rang De Basanti
Vidya Daan is an initiative of Youth For Seva (YFS) and Hindu YUVA Seattle that seeks to sponsor the education of the poorest of the poor kids in India! For academic year 2011-12, YFS volunteers have chosen students after painstakingly verifying their background and meeting each student personally. The chosen students are from families whose annual family income does not exceed Rs 20,000. In some cases it is as low as Rs 5,000.
HinduYUVA is proud to organize its annual charity event of screening blockbuster movie Rang De Basanti.
When: Saturday, 30th April, 3pm – 7pm
Cost: $10
All proceedings will go toward Vidya Daan alone! Additional voluntary donations at the venue are most encouraged!
RSVP on facebook event page and buy your ticket now!
You can also make a voluntary donation to the cause directly or below. Sponsor one child for a year by making a donation of $90, in which case you’ll get status report of the student twice a year.
Upcoming Events this Month (Bouddhik evening, Movie Nite for Charity)
Monthly Bouddhik Evening
Continuing our tradition of somebody sharing information about a particular topic, we present a talk on “Introduction to Indian Philosophy” by Jagdish Pandey.
Where: CSE403, Paul G. Allen Center, University of Washington
When: 7:30pm to 8:30pm, April 23, 2011
Cost: Nothing, but your inquisitive self
Here is the link to the facebook event page. Please RSVP there to receive any further messages regarding the talk.
Talk abstract: “India philosophy is extremely diverse as with anything Indian, and its roots can be traced back to ancient times. In this talk, we will attempt to understand the broad categories of Indian philosophy along with their primary differences and characteristics. We will broadly cover both theistic and atheistic schools of thoughts and trace their chronological development. Specifically, Hindu, Sikh, Bouddh and Jain traditions or the Dharmic traditions will be examined in more detail and their common bases and differences will be highlighted.” – Jagdish.
Annual Movie Nite for Charity: Rang De Basanti
Vidya Daan is an initiative of Youth For Seva (YFS) and Hindu YUVA Seattle that seeks to sponsor the education of the poorest of the poor kids in India! For academic year 2011-12, YFS volunteers have chosen students after painstakingly verifying their background and meeting each student personally. The chosen students are from families whose annual family income does not exceed Rs 20,000. In some cases it is as low as Rs 5,000.
HinduYUVA is proud to organize its annual charity event of screening blockbuster movie Rang De Basanti.
Where: Savery Hall #260, university of Washington, Seattle
When: Saturday, 30th April, 3pm – 7pm
Cost: $10
All proceedings will go toward Vidya Daan alone! Additional voluntary donations at the venue are most encouraged!
Monthly Bouddhik Evening (2nd in the series)
The talk was given by Santhosh Narayana on “Corruption Modern India: A political or Cultural Phenomenon”. The response was really good with about 25 people attending the talk with full enthusiasm.
We are sharing the talk here (download link). If you would like to use these slides and require access to editing them, please email us.
We started the concept of Bouddhik evenings to initiate a forum where people can share their knowledge with others. The basic idea is that someone who has been reading about certain topic or is an expert at something gives a talk to the audience followed by a Q-A session (total of one hour). The idea is to hold it once every month. If you would also like to present something, please contact us at hyuva@uw.edu.
Hindu Yuva SEWA Project: Yesler Creek Restoration
Project Goals: The Yesler Creek ravine headwaters is a small creek that runs along the Burke Gilman bicycle trail in Seattle. Even in such an urban environment, it serves as a thriving habitat of native plants and animals. However, the ecological balance had been disturbed by unchecked growth of the Himalayan berry plant, that took over the entire creek. This project is part of a multi-year effort to remove invasive species like the Himalayan berry and to install a diverse suite of native plants, one section of the ravine at a time.
What we did: We worked with the UW Restoration Ecology Network team, that has a group of volunteers who work on this project every month. The volunteers first taught us about how to take a potted plant and plant it to grow in the wild. We spent about 2 hours doing this, having a lot of fun with gardening tools. The next part of the project was to use bioengineering techniques to prevent soil erosion on another side of the ravine, where there were not a lot of plants to bind the soil. This was fairly hard work: We had to move heavy logs of wood to create a check so that rainwater flowing down the slope flows around the check rather than straight down. We then planted fast-growing trees around the check so that their roots would go in and bind the soil well, preventing further erosion in the longer term (even after the check we build decayed/was destroyed). Overall, everyone had a lot of fun working with our hands in the mud, and we learned a lot about gardening techniques.
Upcoming Events this Month (Holi celebration, Musical evening, Bouddhik evening)
Holi Celebration
Holi, the festival of colors is here. Continuing our popular celebration of Holi from past years, we are going to celebrate it once again at the Golden gardens Beach this year on March 20. It’s also the end of the quarter so all the more reason to come and celebrate. We will provide organic colors there only. So just come dressed up properly, ready to face the beach, the colors, and the enjoyment. The program will be followed by a potluck lunch.
Please RSVP on the facebook event page since we will be sending out some final reminder messages and more details there.
Playing with colors
When: 10:00am to 12:30pm, March 20, 2011 (Sunday)
Holi Potluck
Where: 7516 Roosevelt Way NE #3, Seattle, WA 98115
When: 1:30pm to 3:00pm, March 20, 2011 (Sunday)
Sangeet Sandhya
The spring break is on and here is a perfect way to enjoy an evening of it through music. Let us all come together, music amateurs or experts, to sing songs and play instruments together. Remember, none of us are professional musicians here; the idea is to have fun! We will have light snacks to go with it.
Where: Radford Court, 6301, 65th Ave NE, Seattle 98115
When: 6pm to 9pm, March 22, 2011
Cost: Yourself
Here is the link to the facebook event page. Please RSVP there to receive any further messages regarding the evening.
Bouddhik Evening
Continuing our tradition of somebody sharing information about a particular topic, we present a talk on “Understanding Corruption” by Santhosh Narayana.
Where: CSE403, Paul G. Allen Center, University of Washington
When: 7:30pm to 8:30pm, April 2, 2011
Cost: Nothing, but your inquisitive self
Here is the link to the facebook event page. Please RSVP there to receive any further messages regarding the talk.
Talk abstract: “My topic will be “Corruption in modern India. Political or cultural phenomenon?”. I will talk about the growth of corruption in modern India, discuss some important reasons why it is so rampant, what is being done to tackle it and what can be done further. I will try to analyse if its a political problem, so that a political solution would be enough or is it a deep rooted cultural malaise that would require far greater and tougher solutions.” – Santhosh.
