A “Rainbow of Seva activities”, as it is fondly referred to by the Sathya Sai alumni, actually started in December 2017. It was just two days of Seva activities planned during our annual alumni meet, Premabandham. Organically the two days increased to a week the following year, and subsequently to 15 days, this is apart from the full day of our Cultural Program offering at Sai Kulwant Hall that we always had on the first of January every year.

During the earlier years alumni came to Parthi to enjoy the physical Darshan, Sparshan of Swami and to get his invaluable blessings. However a huge void was felt in our hearts since Bhagawan’s Mahasamadhi. This feedback was received from many, especially from the younger alumni who visited Prasanthi Nilayam for the alumni meet. That’s when we pondered over and made a conscious effort in this direction to understand the same. Soon we realized that most alumni and family were visiting Prasanthi Nilayam to contribute in some way or the other, especially hands-on. Some usually volunteer to help prepare the sets, some would act in the drama , some were part of the music group, Vedam, Slow march, Dance, processions etc. However, there was still a small bunch who felt left out. They too wanted to contribute during the meet in some way or other. This is when the idea of engaging “all-hands on Seva” came up. All the alumni together in His Seva – as part of the “Rainbow of Seva activities”!

Broadly, there were about seven activities in the menu – from serving in all the four canteens to volunteering at the mobile cloakroom counter, Prasanthi Nilayam cleanup drive, visiting devotees in the old sheds, Seva in the hospitals of GH & Super Specialty, etc. Right in the first year of initiating this, a majority of alumni and family members went back immensely satisfied. The devotees, elders and patients who were served through these activities showered blessings, and there was a feeling of great satisfaction and fulfillment overall.

By 2019 Premabandham, this grew to 10 over days of Seva activities, though as per the plan it was supposed to be only for 7 days. It included serving at the Bhakthanivas sheds in the ashram this time around. Also with January 1st 2019, it was decided that these activities should not be restricted to just the alumni meets, but spread out the entire year long. Further it was decided that we, the students of Swami who are keen to volunteer regularly, will visit Prasanthi Nilayam every second Saturday and Sunday of the month to engage in these Seva activities.

With immense support and motivation from the Administration in Prasanthi Nilayam. We even had during one weekend over 175 volunteers on Seva activities at Bhakthanivas. This included current students as well- thanks to the support from the University and the PSN Campus.

Every year in the month of November, around the week of Bhagawan’s birthday celebrations a medical camp used to be held in Prasanthi Nilayam for decades. This is usually referred to as ‘PN All India SSSSO 24-hour Free Medical Camp’. It is usually a five-day activity where two to three thousand people are served by a group of doctors . These doctors have been participating in this for decades now. For the second year in a row, the alumni and current students of all campuses filled in to help in this. The activities included setting up the cabins, digitization, crowd control, etc. It was digitized entirely using a software developed by alumnus Gunaranjan, the founder of NGO ‘YouSee’. This activity drew participation of current students and alumni from across the campuses. Thus offered us an opportunity to collaborate between alumni, current students, as well as the SSSSO as part of this.

From November 2019, the ‘Seva every second weekend of the month’ stepped up to an ambitious ‘Every weekend Seva at PSN’! Brothers who signed up for the weekend usually reached Prasanthi Nilayam by the Saturday morning. They would participate in the activities over the weekend, and return by late Sunday evening to begin their work-week starting Monday. This weekend Seva offered us an ideal platform to dedicate two days every week to serve Bhagwan’s devotees. Also to visit Puttaparthi.

Sri Sathya Sai Primary Health Centers

Free primary healthcare centers by SSSSO and SSSIHL alumni

When the entire state of Kerala was affected due to floods in the year 2018, more than 100 alumni participated in-person taking turns, visiting Kerala over several weeks to support the flood relief work of SSSSO. Also over 1000 alumni supported the cause from remote when it came to making School kits for the flood affected children in Kerala. The SSSIHL campuses assisted too in assembling the school kits. Post the floods, SSSSO Kerala wished that one free SSSPHC should be there in every district of Kerala state. With the support of All India President of SSSSO- Sri Nimish Pandya Ji, Kerala State President- Sri Mukundan Ji and the Kerala state team, happy to share that eight out of 14 are already set up and operational today! Further, such free primary health care centers have been set up in the other states as well – such as Orissa, Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, AP and Telangana, in coordination with the local Sathya Sai alumni, Youth and the SSSSO.

The support from Alumni is primarily for the infrastructure, digitization, increasing youth engagement in each area, training the prospective youth on the best practices & process, and so on. This in turn helped standardize the centers to make them all look alike and also operate with standardized SOPs.

The patients who visit these PHCs were given a Unique Identification Code that makes his/her medical record accessible across all SSSPHCs in the country. This contributes to a seamless experience for the patients visiting these SSSPHCs. It also helped in profiling the villages and other analytics. There are also coordinators setup from the Alumni team for each of these centers. These coordinators will get on to their notebooks every sunday to view the progress of the camps, to monitor, and also to stay available for any ongoing remote support needs.

Alumni in Seva during the Covid 19 Crisis

With the impact across several sections of the society, India’s nationwide lockdown has deeply affected the migrant worker population. With the public transportation completely shut down, thousands of migrants resorted to walking towards their hometowns by foot. Following Swami’s teachings of Love all-Serve all, the alumni of Swami’s institutions decided to help them.

Karnataka: Initially, as the lockdown was announced in the 4^th week of March, nobody was allowed to move out hence the alumni decided to start operating through the alumni-founded NGOs that had the permission to operate in the field. It began with distribution of dry ration kits through ‘Sai Krishna Charitable Trust’ in Bangalore, an NGO started by Brother Vinod Cartic, alumnus of SSSIHL. This organization, named and actually seed-funded by Swami Himself (in Puttaparthi in 2008-2010), is run completely by His guidelines. Clear conditions were laid down for everyone who was willing to participate  – in the interest of the health of the individuals and more importantly their respective family members. Alumni Volunteering for the field work need to be healthy, young, willing, and not falling in any of the high risk groups. Rest of them participated remotely.

Over the first phase (from last week of March and month of April), 1000+ dry ration kits were distributed to the migrant workers and underprivileged families in Bangalore who needed support.

Apart from this, Alumnus Gunaranjan who runs a foundation named ‘YouSee’, helped in setting up a free helpline for online healthcare consultation. This again was actively participated by Bangalore based Sathya Sai Alumni.

After April ‘20, during the second phase, we observed that the migrants had started walking towards their respective states/villages/homes from Bangalore, with their entire families and luggages. Alumni brothers Prakash Srinivasan and Manoj Gadi along with their families went to the highway and the outposts of Bangalore to distribute food to the walking migrants. They sensitized the rest of the alumni, and included many more to participate in this activity since then!

This Seva activity saw over 150 alumni, friends and family members participate across the Bangalore City. The brand of Sathya Sai Alumni is now familiar across various police stations, local NGOs, nodal offices, IPS & IAS officers, COVID warriors team, BBMP- Bangalore, etc. The activities included food and water distribution, setting up help desks in collaboration with the local administration and police, medical support for non-COVID patients, Sanitizing the hands of migrant travellers, etc. Bangalore based Alumni also worked closely with the government hospitals in certain areas to support the doctors with medical screening, registration of migrant labourers, etc.

This initiative was also supported from remote by the worldwide alumni community.

• Since the start of COVID Crisis, the Alumni actively served the needy every single day
• Over 60,000 hungry migrants were already served food by Alumni when this article goes to print. This included 175,000 units of mostly long Shelf-life foods like Teplas, Gud Pooris, Masala Chappatis etc. It was accompanied by Water, Chikkis, buttermilk, Juices, Bananas, Buns. The Migrants were also duly served with sanitizers by the Alumni Brothers.
• Sathya Sai Alumni played a lead role in coordination of Migrants seva in the Bangalore City to ensure smooth execution. This was particularly noticed and appreciated by several other NGOs, government officials and other stakeholders involved.

Tamil Nadu: The alumni in Tamil Nadu actively engaged in mobilizing the required materials for the Amritha Kalasam – the bag of essentials for the needy families. They worked very closely with SSSSO Tamil Nadu. The program has been running on a weekly basis since the past three months. They also engaged in identifying deserving communities to serve, and supporting other NGOs.

All Seva activities are being done in proper coordination with local authorities, government officials and packages are being distributed particularly by the identified individuals. The alumni also supported in the kitchens allotted to SSSSO Tamil Nadu. Several emergency requests were also attended to.

West Bengal (Darjeeling and Kalimpong), Sikkim and Nepal: Seva activities in the state of West Bengal, Sikkim and Nepal were spearheaded by The SAINO Foundation, a non-profit organization by the alumni of Swami’s Institute.

In a short time span, The SAINO Foundation was able to touch thousands of needy lives and families through various initiatives. Medical supplies were distributed to several villages, protection kits for healthcare workers, ration across multiple villages and home quarantined students. On a daily basis, while the entire world is facing such a herculean challenge, Swami continues to touch and transform innumerable individuals and families through his students.

Maharashtra :Dharamshehtra in Mumbai has been converted into a kitchen and each day there are close to 5000+ food packets that are being delivered to all the Red zones such as Dharavi, Malad etc via the municipal corporation.

Further, alumni brothers in Mumbai started online sessions from April 07, 2020, to help Sai devotees connect with Swami during these testing times, sharing experiences. This began as a bi-weekly event held on Tuesdays and Fridays at 7 PM to 8:30 PM. Post the lockdown it transitioned to being held on 2nd and 4th Sundays.

To view the sessions conducted so far, please find them in the title “Sai Sessions” on youtube. These sessions have come as a saving grace in these lockdown times and have helped people from across the globe connect, reminisce and recollect Swami’s teaching and messages. Some sessions have had attendees up to 1200+ in number.

Odisha: The state has been the venue for some unique Sai Seva. Here are two unique activities.

Sri Sathya Sai Holistic Healthcare Helpline (for Non-COVID health issues and Animal care)

Sri Sathya Sai Organisation and the alumni from Odisha have been very active during the COVID Crisis. They have set up two helplines –

1. “Sri Sathya Sai Holistic Healthcare Helpline”, which looks after the care for humans and animals. The helplines went live in the first week of April.

2. Another helpline that caters to the healthcare services of non-COVID patients.

People are very hesitant to come out of their homes to visit a hospital for their routine check-ups and minor health issues. This helpline has doctors empanelled from various specialties such as General Medicine, Paediatrics, Gynaecologists, Neurosurgery, Cardiologists, Diabetology, Dental, Ophthalmology, ENT and more, supported by a back-end team of volunteers – all working from home! The back-end team picks the call, ascertains the category and directs the patient to an appropriate doctor. The doctors are available for six hours a day – three hours in the morning and three hours in the evening. All calls are duly recorded. Once the call is completed, our back-end alumni team listen to the call and note down the respective action to be taken by the doctor or the patient, for example – to confirm if there is a follow up required for a patient, and the like. In due consultation with the doctor, an e-prescription is generated and sent to the patient, with which the required medicines can be procured. There have been multiple cardiac patients, neuro patients, pregnant women across very remote areas who had no access to doctors and have benefitted from this Seva activity. All necessary guidelines laid by the Medical Council of India have been followed related to telemedicine.

Remote Medical Camps using the Zoom Application –
This is an emerging and innovative initiative by our alumni brothers –  “Medical Consultations through Zoom”!  YOUSEE – an alumni led NGO is conducting virtual medical camps using Zoom in collaboration with local Sri Sathya Sai Organisations. The patients and volunteers for the zoom session were identified and trained on the application for VC. These virtual zoom consultations have been held since the last 2 weekends of June, and we are looking to expand this further.

Sai Karuna Helpline

For animal care : ‘Sai Karuna Helpline’, with 14 veterinary doctors signed up to serve from 9.00 AM to 9.00 PM. The consultation is done in matters regarding their pets, stray animals, livestock. Since most doctors have been in government services, they have been able to easily refer the cases to the government veterinary doctors and hospitals across many districts.

So far 1700+ calls in both these helplines have been attended to.

Apart from this, the regular daily Seva activities continue in the state of Odisha.

Helpline number – 08047104008

To participate in these seva activities, you may contact –
Venkatadesikan Mani +91 96324 22311 / Sai Gunaranjan +91 90001 83123

Note : Since the COVID situation is still active, we couldn’t cover all the regions and activities in this edition. We intend to cover more in the upcoming editions of Vidyullekha.