Children visiting Singing Heart.

SHIC started with a simple meeting in a school room in 2005.

Originally the children who benefitted from SHIC came from the nearby village and were helped with school fees, English tuition, a teacher to help with general tuition and homework in the evenings, medical expenses, clothing. Outings were also arranged and visits to the ashram.

Young ones from villages are usually at a disadvantage when starting school - town and city children often learn to read, write and recognise numbers at an early age. They tend to receive more support from the family, whereas village families must work very hard on the land and the adults do not have much education.

Projects sponsored today by SHIC:

1. Tuition and help with homework for village children.
2. School fees for poor children.
3. Medical expenses for poor children.
4. SHYA – Singing Heart Young Adults. A project for 16 – 26 year olds from nearby villages. This group meets at the Ashram for 1 day and evening programs that include teachings on subjects relevant for young adults: e.g. family life and relationships, how to deal with difficult emotions, integrating the best of the old and new here in India, building bridges between village and town life. There is also time for discussion groups, deep meditation sittings with instruction when needed, music and dance, blessings.
5. Poonthalir. Poonthalir means the first leaf of a seed - the first spire of a plant. Below you can read more below about this special project.

Poonthalir is under the care of a charitable organisation called Terre des Hommes – see website: www.tdhcore.org Chezhian, who is director of Terre des Hommes in India, has been working with this fine project: to help stop the killing of girl babies. This project happens in Salem – a town in Tamil Nadu where the killing of girl babies has been widespread. Terre des Hommes has many children’s homes around Tamil Nadu including several here in Tiruvannamalai. Here are more new and old photos from SHIC events.