Sewa International is a service project of Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS) UK (Registered Charity No: 267309)
What are their principle roles?
- To relieve poverty and disease and help the sick, needy, the weak and those affected by natural calamities, disasters and other suffering.
- To help in the education and training of the poor, sick, disabled and socially backward students and assist them financially.
- To facilitate long term development to enable communities to become self sufficient and confident.
How are they funded?
- General Donations - There are hundreds of people who donate to Sewa International on a regular basis, or during a campaign.
- Collecting tins There have been over 600 collecting tins distributed to retail shops and businesses throughout England.
- Fund Raising Community fund raising by the many supporters provides large amount of cash.
What other activities do they do?
- Blood Donations - Sewa International organizes blood donation sessions on a regular basis to encourage the Indian community to donate blood.
- Health Care Seminars - Sewa International arranges seminars on health issues which are particularly relevant to the Indian community.
- Sewa Week A week of education and fund raising amongst the community to increase awareness of sewa principles and sewa activity
Who else supports them?
Sewa International is supported by thousands and thousands of individuals across the UK, India and the rest of the world. They have an enormous network of supporters who continually work to raise funds for ongoing and new projects. There are also many organisations in the UK that support Sewa International. These include Hindu Council UK, Hindu Forum of Britain, Asian Foundation for Health and the National Council of Hindu Temples to name a few.
Sewa International is backed by people cutting across lines of class, creed or faith. Support to it has come from the Queen, the Prince of Wales, Lord Dholakia, Sir G. K. Noon, MPs, councillors as well as others.
Why does the NHSF support Sewa International?
NHSF has for the past 14 years worked with and supported the charity Sewa International. Based on a comprehensive understanding of the organisation from a long relationship with each other, we have proudly chosen Sewa International as the official NHSF charity. Throughout the years many of us have worked with and seen the work performed by Sewa International, not only in the UK, but also in India.
Amongst many other reasons we support Sewa International because:
- Sewa International has the principle of sewa at the heart of their work. Volunteers and supporters give and help expecting and receiving nothing in return. People help and support because they believe in the cause and continual work carried out by the charity. This means that administration costs are very low and many of the working costs are paid for by the volunteers. This belief and principle which extends to the heart of every person that supports Sewa International puts Sewa International strides beyond all other charities.
- Sewa International does not believe in providing mere charity to the poor. It believes it is our duty to help uplift our brethren in a way that is not patronising but uplifting. The aim of overall development and progress is always maintained and this is philosophy results in a methodology unmatched by many other charities.
- Sewa International, by definition of the principles it abides by, ensures that aid as well as development and educational projects are given to everyone regardless of class, creed, colour or religion.
- Sewa International has been known to have excellent partnership links with organisations of various professionals such as engineers, doctors, surgeons, lawyers and accountants, as well as with other Hindu organisations working in Britian. We believe that these links have allowed the organisation to perform their sewa duties very effectively.
- The breadth of activity carried out by sewa international is unparalleled. Not only does the charity offer relief in times of natural calamities, the charity also has ongoing welfare and educational projects as well as organising activities such as blood donation sessions and health care seminars. Even this is only a fraction of the work that Sewa International carries out.
- From past experience we have found that Sewa International has acted extremely quickly in helping those that have been affected by natural and mad-made tragedies. In certain cases such as the Tsunami earthquake, Sewa International was, for large periods of time in certain areas, the only charity to offer aid to those that were affected.
- In supporting Sewa International, NHSF can in turn receive great support and guidance, not possible from other charities, in planning and running national and local level sewa events.
- Due to the experience of its workers and volunteers over the years Sewa International has gained a level of expertise in the fields that it works in that is often unparalleled by any other organisation. Sewa International has workers all over the world that are often based at the project not only cutting travelling costs but also providing local grassroot information and feedback unavailable to other charities. Therefore we can have faith that work carried out will be of high quality with little wastage.
Summary
We believe that Sewa International are with respect to the work carried out by themselves, their affiliates and their supporters, pound for pound the best charity currently available.
For more information please visit www.sewainternational.com.
http://www.nhsf.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=343:organisation-sewa-international&catid=114:sewa&Itemid=186
