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| HOW SOHAM WORKS |
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What is the meaning of Soham? Soham is a form of meditative breathing, and is the natural mantric sound of the breath - "So" when you inhale and "Ham" when you exhale. The Soham mantra has been called the universal mantra because of the fact that its vibration is already a part of the breath, and everybody breathes. In Sanskrit, it is the mantra signifying "I Am That", which identifies the self as one with the world. Team Soham feels that since we are one with the world it is everyone's responsibility to improve the world. The way we want to do this is by educating the poor and orphaned children in Hyderabad, India. This is our way of making our world just a little bit better.
Our philosophy is to break the cycle of poverty by providing the tools necessary for children in need - education - so they can eventually provide for themselves. We feel education is a necessary and critical tool which will allow impoverished children to acquire the skills required to successfully earn a living for themselves and their families.
Our goal is to provide this education for children in need. There are two phases in our plan to achieve our final goal of building an orphanage for 30 children around the area of Hyderabad, India. The first stage is to build a school for 120 orphaned and impoverished children that offers classes for kids in kindergarten to 5th grade. In addition to educating these children we will provide two wholesome meals a day for the children at the school: breakfast and lunch. This will ensure that we provide children a safe and nurturing place to learn. The second stage is building housing for 30 orphans in addition to the school. We want to provide boarding, on site tutoring, and pay for these children’s education beyond 5th grade as well. We also want to have an onsite nurse/nutritionist since research indicates that 47% of Indian children under the age of 5 suffer from severe to moderate malnutrition. This will ensure that we help maintain the physical health of these children as well. The orphanage will have a library, study rooms, dorms, bathrooms, a kitchen, cafeteria, a playground, and staff accommodations.
Children will be selected for our orphanage based on need. We want to keep the ratio of girls to boys even. Also, we want to make Soham a multicultural and multi-religious institution for our children in order to develop them into open, culturally aware human beings. |
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