A Year of Love

2007: A Year of Love at the
"Ark of Love Hariharananda - São Paolo"

A report by Bia Alves

A tree is recognized by its fruits, and a human being through his/her actions and attitude.
- Paramahamsa Hariharananda

Another full year of activities has been completed, and our Ark continues sailing with a lot of love.

The year of 2007 was special in the Ark of Love Hariharananda São Paulo: we improved our pedagogical project “Peaceful and loving relationship amongst beings”; we reinforced its implementation and forged stronger bonds of unity among the volunteers by introducing Pedagogical Supervision meetings; we continued the partnership with Casa Francisco and carried on our social work, every Saturday morning, in this comfortable and cozy house; we took care of 20 children age 7 to 14 years, who live in the Glicerio district in downtown São Paulo.

Our goal was to create a small theater production which was performed by the children on November 2^nd, graced and blessed by the presence of our teacher Swami Sarveshwaranandaji.

This event was an important moment for integrating families, children and volunteers, as well as an opportunity to talk with the families about important issues regarding our little ones’ education: drugs, physical abuse and other problems.

Daniel, focused on the altar.

Theater show.

The children, volunteers, and Swami after the presentation.

Breathing exercises with the families and volunteers.

Volunteers serving lunch.

2007 in numbers

42 Saturday mornings dedicated to volunteer work.
Over 210 hours of activities full of love.
8 cultural outdoor activities with the children - museum, theatre, park...
1,780 nutritious dinners served with care
15 volunteers offering their work of love
15 families assisted by the Ark of Love

Swami Sarveshwarananda’s visit

Between 1 and 14 November we received the precious visit of Swami Sarveshwarananda. During his stay in São Paolo, he performed many different activities, including lectures, storytelling and singing events, retreats, initiations… and even the marriage of our beloved Ark sailors Joyce and Ivan!

Special - Baba Hariharananda’s 100^th birthday

During the month of May 2007, we had three events celebrating Baba Hariharananda’s hundredth birthday, who inspires the humanitarian work done by the Ark of Love and the Mission bearing his name.

On the 26^th, the children saw the play “The Knight and the Centipede” at the Vento Forte theater. Afterwards, we had a puja (ecumenical worship). All children received blessed roses to take to their families as a memento.

On May 27^th, Baba’s birthday, a special meeting for kriyavans was held, with puja, guided meditation, readings, and videos. It was a very special moment for everyone.

On May 28^th, at the weekly group meditation, we had another puja and meditation.

Ark of Love activities

The Ark of Love activities are becoming more interesting all the time! To kick off 2007, we listened to the story of Noah’s Ark and contemplated on it for a while, reflecting on the life amongst the different animals inside the ark. Between the months of March to June, we visited the Zoo and the São Paulo Aquarium and had the opportunity to learn a little more about the characteristic of many different animals, and heard some curious stories!

During the second semester, our activities at the Ark of Love focused on the production of a small theater play. We created and decorated our clay masks with different animal features; we designed costumes, self-portraits and the set for the play. We learned dances, songs and mantras. And we had some exciting rehearsals before the final presentation!

During this time, we also had the opportunity to watch various plays: “Who counts stars tells tales?”; “The Knight and the Centipede”; “The boy who ran away from the play”. We visited the Ipiranga Museum, we played at the park, and enjoyed many types of physical activities such as kempo, skipping rope, yoga and Thai massage.

The children and Carlos, the bus driver.

At the Vento Forte theatre.

Activities at Casa Francisco.

Painting and decorating masks.

Masked Monkey.

Children at the Thai massage workshop.

Divine light

We finished our yearly activities with a joyful Treasure Hunt, where we could find that togetherness, love, peace, kindness, joy and friendship are our most precious divine gifts!

All children received clothes, books, shoes and a special mp3 player pre-loaded with various songs, stories and mantras, including a recording of themselves singing a mantra with the name of God in different religions. All generously donated by loving godparents!

The 15 families helped by our work also received Christmas packages, kindly donated by our collaborators Angélica Arbex and Antônio Couto from Lello Condomínios. The delivery of these gift baskets was done by our volunteer Ark sailors, who visited each family on December 15^th.