HeartNotes 2019: Fundraiser gala for HELP* featuring Radhika Apte and Omi Vaidya
HeartNotes 2019: Fundraiser gala for HELP* featuring Radhika Apte and Omi Vaidya
Please join us at HeartNotes 2019, on June 2nd at Signature Ballroom in Suwanee to HELP* our youth.
Bollywood celebrity Radhika Apte (of Padman and Andhaadhun fame) will deliver the key-note while Actor/Filmmaker Omi Vaidya (Chatur of 3 Idiots fame) will be performing a stand-up comedy act at this fun-filled, entertaining fundraiser. The event will also feature a silent auction and several raffle drawings.
Invited dignitarites include local government, business and community leaders like Dr. Jagdish Sheth of Emory University, Federation of Indian-American Associations of Georgia, as well as several NGOs working towards the cause of Child and Youth empowerment within Atlanta Metro.
Don't miss this opportunity learn about this alarming situation and how you can HELP make a difference. Enjoy a delicious lunch while networking with over 300+ successful local professionals and support a great cause.
So hurry, book your tickets today at http://heartnotes.events
DATE: 2 June 2019 Sunday
Time: 12-3:30 PM
Venue: Signature Ballroom, 80 Horizon Drive, Suwanee GA 30024
Contact: https://heartfulness.org/us/heart-notes/
About the Cause:
India's President Ram Nath Kovind in a December 2017 speech, remarked that India faced a huge mental health epidemic impacting a population greater than the size of Japan. He exhorted the nation to also explore practices such as Yoga and Meditation in helping people impacted. Our youth – having not quite achieved mental maturity – are particularly susceptible to this affliction, as they face high parental expectations coupled with an intensely competitive environment. Failure to meet these expectations and a societal stigma to seek help for mental health has led to an alarming rise in incidents of nervous breakdowns, depression and suicides in recent years among our youth. India sadly accounts for a third of the world's female suicides and a fourth of the world's male suicides. Among our youth it is the leading cause of death. Will the future India be made up of young people who are full of aspiration but fragile and weak in their mental constitution?
*HELP - Heartfulness: Experience Life's Potential, equips our youth with life skills to handle pressure, manage stress and avoid mental distress. We have already rolled out this program to over 300,000 high school students in India across 1500 intermediate colleges and are planning to scale this to over a million students across multiple states in the upcoming academic year. We intend to also roll this out in multiple countries including the US in a phased manner starting from our own neighborhood schools in Atlanta.
-Invited dignitaries like Dr. Jagdish Sheth and Federation of Indian-American Associations of Georgia
-Several NGOs working towards the cause of Child and Youth empowerment within Atlanta Metro
-Learn about the alarming situation with suicide rates among youth and how you can HELP and make a difference
-Enjoy a delicious lunch
-Network with 300+ like-minded influencers that have supported significant causes within the Atlanta community
-Other Attendees include local government and community leaders, and multiple local business and government leaders
Heartfulness introduces two innovative & proven transformative programs for kids.
By Viren Mayani
After a hugely successful inaugural Heartfulness program launch in Atlanta last year, the institute does better this year, by introducing not one, but two innovative and proven programs: Brighter Minds for kids K through 12 and HELP [Heartfulness – Experience Life’s Potential] for teens, both conceived and tested by Heartfulness Education Trust founded in 2017. “Our vision is to enable students as well as teachers to lead balanced, purposeful, happy lives through heart-based programs like HEART, HELP, yoga, and meditation training, so that they are equipped to contribute to sustainable school reform and to community citizenship.”
The media gathering for the soft launch of the actual Atlanta program scheduled for June 2nd 2019 from 12 – 3pm, was held at one of the Heartfulness leaders Sanjay Sehgal’s residence. The compelling reason to develop such programs and engage the youth was twofold as Sanjay points out: the first was the obvious one, which is how to engage the K-12 youth in Heartfulness when their parents are busy with meditation and other programs. The other being even more imminently critical: youth suicide rates. Suicide is the leading cause of death among Indian youth (15 to 24), and the second leading cause of death among college students in the US. India accounts for over a third of the world’s female suicides and nearly a quarter of the male suicides in the world. Suicide, as we are learning now, is the result of students often lacking the necessary emotional intelligence and life skills at the same time parents, and even their teachers, not being aware, or lack the tools or training.
HELP consists of a 16-week certificate course for intermediate students, which equips them with life skills integrating experiential Heartfulness-based meditation techniques.
It has been found by state governments in India to be an effective tool for addressing the stress levels and suicidal tendencies among its students. In addition to the 16-week course for students, HELP interrupts the increasing levels of mental distress through reactive and proactive interventions. It is the largest program of its kind wherein:
2500+ volunteers and 250+ trainers engage 331,921 students in 1500 schools in 22 districts throughout AP, TN, GU, and UP.
In the words of C. JoyBell C. [the most frequently quoted author on Goodreads, and a leading female thinker and writer in our world today], “Our bodies have five senses: touch, smell, taste, sight, and hearing. But not to be overlooked are the senses of our souls: intuition, peace, foresight, trust, and empathy. The differences between people, lie in their use of these senses; most people don't know anything about the inner senses while a few people rely on them just as they rely on their physical senses, and in fact probably even more.”
This resonated with the Trust and its leaders. After a carefully developed Brighter Minds program in 2015, based on extensive research on neuroplasticity and brain wave entrainment to explore the areas of intuition and sensory substitution/augmentation, it was successfully launched in 2016 across six countries–India, France, Italy, Kuwait, USA, and Australia–with more than 120 learning centers and 200 trainers. As of today, Brighter Minds has a global presence that spans across 13 countries with more than 500 learning centers, 800 trainers, and 15000 children trained. It is a training program designed for kids to enhance their cognitive foundation elements including but not limited to focus, observation, comprehension, intuition, memory retention, empathy, and confidence. Brilliant Minds of North America (BMONA), the learning center in North Atlanta, is one of the 40 learning centers in USA. It was launched in 2017 with 6 trainers and as of today, more than 15 kids have successfully graduated, from two batches enrolled.
One of the graduates who is continuing the practice even today, displayed an amazing amount of developed intuitive skills. Being completely blindfolded [which was inspected by a few of the inquisitive adults in the room] the 12 year old was able to resolve the Rubik’s cube in minutes, read our handwritten notes on various topics, read a ten and twenty dollar bill after identifying it as such, and then read of the serial numbers printed on the note, read the Driver’s License of Consul Shailesh Lakhtakia, as well as spell out its expiration date, as well as read the title of a book cover and the publisher–but most astonishingly the youth could identify the color of a plastic ball randomly pulled out from a bag and presented to him in his palm and later, identifying the color even when it was held by another but close to him. The visual was simply unbelievable, to say the least.
The objective of this presentation was not to “shock and awe” the attendees but to emphatically display how the curriculum of the program helps develops the intuitive minds of the young. To imagine that by the time they will enter the work force, how equipped they will be to not only outshine the competition, but also develop the emotional intelligence they need to survive in this rat race world.
After a very delicious home cooked spread prepared by the volunteers, the gathering parted with a promise that the youth will also make a presentation in the June 2nd program.
