Accomplishments: In Alberta, the MSA has been promoting better health with awareness seminars and educational tools for children. It also offers a support network for youths in need.
Major seminars such as A Matter of Heart and A Matter of Cancer have had great success.
The MSA in cooperation with the Edmonton Public School Board, has been donating funds from the annual August walk-a-thon called Walk for Children’s Future to inner city schools in need. Some of the past recipients of these funds have been: Norwood School, Parkdale School, Brightview School and Mee-Yah-Noh School.
Internationally, the MSA is involved in projects such as providing Health and Hygiene facilities in remote areas through mobile clinics, free education for children in remote villages and arranging basic commodities like food, shelter and infrastructure in remote communities where there has been an urgent need.
One of the big achievements of the MSA is the foundation of the Shakuntala Devi Baal Vidyalaya, in Uttar Pradesh, India. Founded in 1990, this village school provides free education to some 400 students. And the need grows each year. The school’s mission statement: Satyamev Jayate, Shrumevjayate (Victory to Truth, Victory to Hard Work)
Other recent Maanaw Seva Association projects include: Scholarships to Women's Engineering Colleges, Funding for Tribal Girls Hostel, a vehicle for addiction relief society and help with Heart surgery for infants. Since its beginning the MSA has funded various development projects worth more than one million dollars.
Other aid projects have been undertaken in west-central India in partnership with the Calgary charity Maharashtra Seva Samiti Organization and the Calgary Vedanta Society. These include education, training and health promotion programs for the greatly under priviledged.
Publications: Among Friends - Robinson Koilpillai: teacher, citizen of Canada, advocate for common humanity is Allan Sheppard’s 2009 biography of a remarkable Canadian known for championing human rights, multiculturalism and the elimination of racial discrimination. As well, in 1998, the Maanaw Seva Association published Righteousness in Action by the esteemed Edmonton scholar and pandit Acharya Shiv Shankar Dwivedi.
Film Projects: In 2012, the MSA premiered it’s first major film production project: The Three Lives of Panditji (see www.mseva-films.org). This one-hour documentary produced and directed by Robert Chelmick tells the remarkable life story of Acharya Shiv Shankar Dwivedi, the priest at the Edmonton Hindu Cultural Centre. It offers deep insight into the makings of a Vedic priest, a master of the Sanskrit language, and a pilgrim on the path to spiritual liberation. The film takes the viewer to the small Indian village of Panditji’s birth, the ashram where he found his path in life, and the extraordinary journey that followed - to a life in snowy Alberta. The Three Lives of Panditji is the first in what is being called The Heritage Series - documentaries that will highlight the contributions of members of Canada’s South Asian community to Canada’s multicultural mosaic.
Maanaw Seva Association Directors:
Jivan Kayande - President
Rajiv Ranjan - Secretary
Rohit Desai - Treasurer
Vasudev Dhodia - Director
Madhu Sehgal - Director
Project Coordinators:
S.P. (Vis) Viswanathan
Nagy Nageswaran