Issue18 - October 2011 Back to newsletter | to TOS website
TOS news from around the world
An unusual venue for the Gujarat and Maharashtra regional conference
Can you imagine enjoying a TOS Conference in a beautiful Jain shrine serving more than 500 pilgrims every day?
In early May, this is where members from the states of Gujarat and Maharashtra met to report on and confer about TOS activities in the region, which focus principally on education, health services and help for senior citizens. The members also took time to discuss the letter from the Master of the Wisdom that inspired Mrs Besant to create the TOS. A retired vice-chancellor of Saurashtra University said, “I am not a member of the TS but I am an ardent member of the TOS, which is living brotherhood.”
To the right we see Dada Bhagwan Ashram near the town of Surat
in Gujarat where the TOS Conference took place.
TOS Regional President, Bro. Kanti Bhai Patel (standing left), welcomes guest speaker, Bro. Mahendra P. Singhal (seated in the middle), who addressed over 50 members present on the theme, “Why TOS and how it relates to brotherhood”.
As is so often the case at TOS conferences in India, a presentation was made to the needy – in this case a wheelchair.
Another inspiring AGM in the Assam and Arunachal region, India
The President of the Assam and Arunachal TOS Region, Bro. J. N. Patowary, recently reported on his region’s energetic Annual Meeting that combined inspiring social welfare work with interesting talks and discussion.
The program began with a medical camp at which approximately 250 people were treated. They even had a mobile medical van equipped with
X-ray and ECG facilities.
Members also participated in other social service activities including visits, with distribution of gifts, to a school and a home for women and orphans, many of whom had been displaced by floods, earthquakes and ethnic disturbances. The women have access to training in weaving, embroidery and making items from textiles.
Consultations at the medical camp
Members enjoyed a variety of interesting talks, many of them on the relevance of the TOS’s approach to service, in relation to contemporary world problems.
At the conclusion of the meeting, various mobility aids were provided to poor and needy handicapped people. Some of these aids had been purchased with a donation from the TOS in Brisbane, Australia.
Successful fundraising for the TOS in Brisbane, Australia
The Brisbane TOS group in Australia supports a number of international TOS projects as well as its local project with homeless women. They are therefore frequently searching for successful fundraising ideas to enable them to make donations to these projects.
Recently they ran a cinema event that was well supported by their friends. They negotiated an excellent reduced price with a cinema, and sold tickets to a popular movie at a little more than the normal cost of a cinema ticket. On arrival, guests were welcomed with a beautifully packaged box of home-made afternoon tea treats and offered a choice of drinks. There was time before the start of the movie for guests to mingle and chat, which added to their enjoyment of the event. Since the afternoon tea was donated by TOS members, this event was a most successful fund-raiser.
TOS President, Tina Fiedler, handing a guest an afternoon tea package
Income generating skills for needy ladies in Nairobi
The TOS in Kenya started a project in September to give skills to women enabling them to add to the family income. Ten ladies from 25 to 70 years of age came to the premises of the TS in Nairobi and were shown how to make cow dung cakes to use as fuel, instead of coal. The fuel cakes are easy and cheap to make, are environmentally friendly and can be sold with a very reasonable profit margin.
The ladies were also taught to make dairy products: butter, ghee (clarified butter), yoghurt (plain and with different fruits and fruit flavours), cottage cheese (again with several flavours), lassi (a cooling yoghurt drink) and paneer (a kind of cheese). Ways to make, pack and sell the products were also discussed.
The ladies were initially to come for only one day but they would like to come back to learn the making of samosas, chapattis (plain and stuffed), as well as art and craft work! TOS Kenya is delighted to be able to assist these women to make extra money for themselves and their families.
Cow dung cakes to the left, and above, drying on a tree
The ladies also learnt to make food products for sale (below).
