Sathya Sai Education in Human Values (UK) Newsletter July 2005

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Sathya Sai Education in Human Values (UK) Newsletter July

2005http://www.sathyasaiehv.org.uk/Newsletters/July05/email.htm

Sathya Sai Education in Human Values (UK) NEWSLETTER - July 2005A monthly e-zine

of the British Institute of Sathya Sai Education www.ssehv.org.uk

Dear Readers

Welcome to the July 2005 issue of the email newsletter.

This month:

Massive Response to Healthy Lifestlye Event in Leicester

Teaching Vacancies in 'Miracle School' of Zambia

Rumpelstiltskin's Daughter - New Values-based Play Comes to Edinburgh Fringe

Training Update

Calendar of Values Alive Events Story: Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan

Please don't forget the SSEHV National Day on Saturday September 17th. To

reserve your place, please contact Pamela Nash (+44 (0) 1784 244494). More

information about the event is available at www.ssehv.org.uk.

If you have any feedback about this newsletter, or if you'd like to share your

experiences of SSEHV, please write to us.

Kind Regards,The Newsletter TeamUn information

Massive Response to Healthy Lifestyle Event in Leicester

More than 450 people, mostly children, attended a free Healthy Lifestyle Event

in a Neighbourhood Centre in the middle of Leicester on Saturday 25th June. The

event was staged by the SSEHV Good Values Club of Leicester, in collaboration

with BBC Children in Need and a local primary school.

There were a host of activities for people to get involved in, including arts

and crafts, puzzles and interactive games. Children had the chance to have

their face painted with a Human Values fruit (strawberry for love, pear for

peace, cherries for right conduct, apple for truth and grapes for non-violence)

and everyone who came was offered a free healthy fruit smoothie. The day

culminated with children performing plays and dancing.

Literature about healthy eating and living was given out to attendees and each

child took home an activity pack containing games, puzzles and colouring

pictures.

The event was so successful that it was repeated on Thursday 14th July at the

primary school. Classes attended the event in rotation for one hour each

throughout the day. A parenting course and a Values Alive Event are now also

planned at the school as a result of the Healthy Lifestyle day.

The master mind behind both Healthy Lifestyle Events was Dipak Fakey. He invites

SSEHV practitioners to contact him if they would like information on how to

stage a similar event in their own area as he has resources available to share.

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Teaching Vacancies in 'Miracle School' of Zambia

The Sathya Sai School in Ndola, Zambia, winner of the International Star Award

in the Gold Category for achievement, leadership and innovation, is currently

recruiting volunteer teachers. The 600-pupil school, which was founded in 1993,

has been labelled a 'Miracle School' by the Zambian media and government because

of its policy of admitting students rejected from other schools due to poor

academic performance and behaviour, and its consistent ability to dramatically

transform these individuals into excellent students achieving the best results

of any school in the country.

Some of the older girl students

Teachers are now sought in the following areas:

Primary School Secondary (High School) from Form 1 to 5 (GCE ‘O’ Level) from

January 2006:- English - Mathematics - Science (Physics, Chemistry and Biology)

- Geography and ICT

The medium of instruction is English and the School follows the UK National

Curriculum, according to the statutory framework of the Ministry of Education

of the Republic of Zambia.

Volunteers must pay their own travel expenses to Ndola. They will benefit from a

free two-bedroom detached house, including water, electricity, a house maid, a

gardener and a subsistence allowance to cover food, etc. which will be provided

by the Sai Education Trust.

Anyone interested in this exciting and highly rewarding opportunity should send

an email with CV and covering letter to Mr Victor Kanu.

View of the boys' campus

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New Values-Based Play Comes to Edinburgh Fringe

Rumpelstiltskin's Daughter, a new musical comedy from the USA, based on the

award winning illustrated children's book by Diane Stanley, will be making its

European debut at this year's Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The play will be

showing at the Assembly Rooms from 6th-29th August (no show on 17th) at 10.50am

daily.

Robert Neal Marshall, the show's author and director, contacted BISSE about it

because it has "a strong message about giving of yourself to help others, using

wisdom & kindness", and he felt it would be of interest to SSEHV practitioners.

"Rumpelstiltskin's Daughter" is a delightful 55 minute musical comedy for

children of all ages, packed with comedy, action, adventure, dance & songs.

Hailed as "a stylistic cross between Disney's 'Beauty and the Beast' and

Stephen Sondheim's 'Into The Woods' with broad humour, winning characters, an

uplifting message and catchy tunes" by the Baltimore Sun, it features a modern,

independent heroine who uses courage, intellect and wit to change a king and

save an entire kingdom. Definitely one to catch if you're heading to the

Festival this year!

More information and booking details are available at www.rumpelstiltskinsdaughter.com

 

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Training Update

Here is the feedback from one participant at an SSEHV Foundation Course:

"Participating in the Human Values course has made a lot of difference to the

meaning of my life. It has given me a lot of encouragement, love and peace of

mind. I highly recommend this course to everybody and anybody of any religious

background. I wish I could find more words to describe this course … but love,

peace, truth, right conduct, non-violence says it all!"

All SSEHV courses are free to attend, although a refundable photocopying deposit

of £10 may be required at registration. Details of all our training courses,

together with contact information and dates can be found on our website at

www.ssehv.org.uk, in the Training section.

Forthcoming SSEHV courses are:

SSEHV Intenstive Parenting Workshop, Shrewsbury, Shropshire 24th-28th July

2005For further information or to reserve a place, please contact Margaret

Harris (01743 873650)

SSEHV Intensive Foundation Course, Shrewsbury, Shropshire7th-12th August 2005For

further information or to reserve a place, please contact Margaret Harris (01743

873650)

SSEHV Parenting Workshop, Southsea, Hampshire27th Sept - Session 14th Oct -

Session 211th Oct - Session 318th Oct - Session 425th Oct - Session 51st Nov -

Session 68th Nov - Session 7For further information or to reserve a place,

please contact Juliet Bell (023 9282 4892) or Simon Wade (01252 702765)

If there is no course scheduled in your area but you would like there to be one,

we can arrange one as long as there are a minimum of ten people who would like

to attend. Please contact Pamela Nash for more information.

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Calendar of Values Alive Events

The following Values Alive Events are currently recruiting volunteers:

24th - 27th July - Four day Values Alive Event, Shrewsbury, Shropshire Contact:

Margaret Harris +44 (0) 1743 873650

26th - 30th July - Five day Values Alive Event, Wembley, North West

LondonContact: Joyce Power +44 (0)20 8723 9916

28th July - 1st August - Five day Values Alive Event, Oldham, Greater

ManchesterContact: Barbara Edmondson +44 (0)1282 429233

12th - 16th September (tbc) - Five day Values Alive Event, Burnley,

LancashireContact: Barbara Edmondson +44 (0)1282 429233

If you would like to volunteer at a Values Alive Event, please contact your

local Regional Co-ordinator. Opportunities are available to both SSEHV trained

and non-trained volunteers. If you can attend for the duration of an event,

that is preferable, but it is not a requirement. If you just want to come for a

day to see how it feels, that's fine too.

Accommodation can usually be arranged free of charge for volunteers travelling

long distances - please discuss with the event co-ordinator. Volunteers'

children are invited to join in the event too. New volunteers may be required

to attend a briefing meeting before the start of an event. Help will be

provided with formalities such as police checking, and all relevant information

and support will be provided.

If you would like your child or children to attend one of the Events, please

contact the relevant co-ordinator for further information.

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STORY

Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan

Helen Keller was born in 1880 in Alabama, USA, the daughter of a newspaper

editor. In 1882, at the age of 19 months, she caught a fever which left her

blind, deaf and unable to speak. Before the fever she had been a bright,

healthy child, just learning to talk. Now she was cast into a dark world where

she could no longer see or hear.

Deprived of the normal ways of learning, Helen soon began to explore the world

by using her other senses. She followed her mother wherever she went by hanging

onto her skirts. She touched and smelled everything she came across and felt

other people's hands to see what they were doing. She copied their actions and

soon the little girl was able to do certain jobs herself, like milking the cows

and kneading dough. She even learnt to recognise people by feeling their faces

or their clothes. She could also tell where she was in the garden by the smell

of the different plants and the feel of the ground beneath her feet.

By the age of seven years she had invented over sixty different signs by which

she could 'talk' to her family. If she wanted bread, for example, she would

pretend to cut a loaf and butter the slices. If she wanted ice-cream she

wrapped her arms around herself and pretended to shiver. So, by her own

efforts, she was beginning to make some sense of an alien and confusing world.

Soon she began to learn about conversation. She noticed that other people used

their mouths and throats to communicate. She realised they were using sound.

Sometimes she stood between two people and touched their lips. Of course, she

could not understand what they said and she could not make any meaningful

sounds herself. Frustration with her inability to understand her world

adequately increased to such a degree that she became wild and unruly. At this

point, at the age of seven years, her parents hired a teacher for Helen.

Twenty-five year old Anni Sullivan came from a poor background and had herself

been blind before two successful eye operations had restored her sight, so she

had a good understanding of the cut-off world that Helen inhabited, as well as

a strong desire to dedicate herself to this new task.

The big breakthrough for Annie and Helen came when one day, Annie led Helen to

the water pump and pumped water onto Helen's hand. As she did so, she spelt out

the individual letters, WATER, on Helen's palm. Helen suddenly realised these

individual signs represented the thing she had just felt - water. In the same

instant, she also realised that everything else in the world must also have a

name, must also be represented by a collection of signs. Helen rushed about

touching anything she could find and asking Annie what it was called. In this

way, she learnt that everything is represented by a set of symbols - a word!

>From this revelation came the next step - that a collection of words can

represent something intangible - an idea.

Annie was careful to teach Helen about those subjects in which she was

interested. The two of them would wander through the fields discussing whatever

ideas came into Helen's mind. In this way, Annie managed to keep Helen intensely

interested in a wide range of subjects. It also meant they could pursue a number

of exciting hobbies, such as sailing and tobogganing.

And so, through Annie/s love and persistence, Helen started to grow and thrive.

She became gentler and by the age of ten she had learned to read and write in

Braille. She also learnt to read people's lips by pressing her finger tips

against them and feeling the movement and vibrations. This method is called

Tadoma, a skill very few manage to acquire. She also learnt to speak, a major

achievement for someone who could not hear at all.

There followed a period of further education for Helen in Boston and New York,

which Annie also attended as Helens guide and interpreter. In 1904, she

graduated from Radcliffe College with honours, having studied German, Latin,

arithmetic, history and English literature. While still at college, she wrote

'The Story of my Life'. This was an immediate success and earned her enough

money to buy her own house.

Helen then turned her attention to welfare work and politics. In 1909, she

joined the Socialist Party, supporting women's suffrage and birth control. She

also opposed the use of child labour and capital punishment. She helped set up

the American Foundation for the Blind. She worked tirelessly for the rest of

her life, writing appeals and making fund-raising tours all over the world.

Through almost all this time Annie was still at Helen's side, helping and

guiding her. It was through her caring and love for Helen, through her

persistence and patience, that Helen had been able to develop the will to

conquer her disability and break through the fetters of her lonely world to

take her place as a contributing individual. Today, the agency, Helen Keller

International, is one of the biggest organisations working with blind people

overseas. Although Helen died in 1968, her story still continues to inspire

people today.

Questions:1. What name would you give this story?2. What happened to Helen

Keller at the age of 19 months?3. Why was it difficult for her to learn to

speak?4. What was the effect of her difficulties on her behaviour?5. What is

the skill of Tadoma?6. What were Annie Sullivan's good qualities?7. What were

Helen Keller's good qualities?8. How did you feel when you heard the story?9.

Did it remind you of anything in your own life?

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2005 British Institute of Sathya Sai Education (BISSE). BISSE is a

non-profit organisation committed to promoting human values in education.

Registered address: The Glen, Cuckoo Hill, Pinner, Middlesex HA5 2BE United

Kingdom Tel: +44 (0) 20 8429 2677 Email: feedback (AT) ssehv (DOT) org.uk

British Institute of Sathya Sai Education www.ssehv.org.uk