Ramakrishna Math & Mission

Contai Temple

The Math & Mission centres were started in 1913 and taken over in 1928.

Activities of the Math centre:

• Daily worship and fortnightly Ramnam Sankirtan.
• Regular classes and public lectures on and off the ashrama premises.
• Celebration of the birthdays of Sri Ramakrishna, Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi and Swami Vivekananda, and also Durga Puja and Kali Puja.

Activities of the Mission centre:

• A library and a reading room with 5164 books and 16 periodicals and newspapers.
• A charitable allopathic-cum-homeopathic dispensary, which treated 7558 cases this year.
• Three medical camps (368 patients treated).
• A students’ home with 29 students.
• An audio-visual unit, which screened educative films in 6 villages benefiting more than 2200 people.
• Welfare work by way of providing books and stipends to students, and financial help, food grains, blankets, clothing, etc to needy persons.
• A rural development project consisting of 8 charitable mobile homeopathic dispensaries (total patients: 27,026), 5 non-formal education centres and 6 coaching centres with 429 students, and a vocational training centre imparting training in carpentry, tailoring and maintenance of electrical appliances with 29 trainees.

Temple

This centre, which was functioning as the town centre of Coimbatore Mission branch, was made a full-fledged Math centre in 2005.

Activities:

• Daily worship, weekly religious classes and fortnightly Ramnam Sankirtan.
• Celebration of festivals like Durga Puja, Kali Puja, Christmas Eve, Shivaratri, etc and the birthdays of Sri Ramakrishna, Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi, Swami Vivekananda and other spiritual luminaries.
• Free coaching classes with 154 students who were given nutritious food daily and also uniforms and other educational materials.

Cherrapunjee Ashrama

The centre was started in 1931.

Activities at Cherrapunjee:

• A higher secondary school with 520 boys and 379 girls.
• A small vocational school for teaching weaving, tailoring and knitting.
• A computer training centre with 252 students.
• A hostel with 61 boys.
• A mobile audio-visual unit which screened 69 educative films in 38 remote villages with 8531 viewers.
• A charitable dispensary (14,727 patients treated) and two mobile medical units (9369 patients treated).
• Special medical camps (1474 patients treated) and health awareness camps in rural areas (nearly 3685 people attended).
• Two libraries with attached reading rooms had 21,435 books and 22 periodicals and newspapers.
• A museum depicting tribal culture.
• A bakery, a dairy and a printing press.
• Welfare work by way of distributing milk, blankets, clothes, bee boxes, honey toolkits, etc to the poor in various remote villages.
• Celebration of the birthdays of religious personalities.

Sohbar sub-centre (Sohbarpunjee, PIN 793 108): This sub-centre, about 18 km down Cherrapunjee, was started in 1928.

Activities at Sohbar sub-centre:

• A lower and an upper primary school, and a secondary school.
• A vocational training centre (weaving).
• Two hostels: one for 50 tribal boys and another for 50 tribal girls.

Shella sub-centre (Disong Shella Village, P.O. Shella Bazar, PIN 793112): This sub-centre was started in 1924.

Activities at Shella sub-centre:

• A lower and an upper primary school and a secondary school.
• A small library.
• Celebration of the birthdays of Sri Ramakrishna, Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi, and Swami Vivekananda, as also Durga Puja, Kali Puja, etc.

The centre also runs primary and secondary schools at other places. In all, it runs 1 higher secondary school, 9 secondary schools, 18 upper primary schools and 38 lower primary schools. 9607 students studied in these schools during the year.

Sohbar sub-centre (Sohbarpunjee, PIN 793108):This sub-centre, about 18 km down Cherrapunjee, was started in 1928.

• Activities at Sohbar sub-centre:
  • A lower and an upper primary school, and a secondary school with 139 boys and 185 girls.
  • A vocational training centre (weaving).

Shella sub-centre (Disong Shella Village, P.O. Shella Bazar, PIN 793112): This sub-centre was started in 1924.

• Activities at Shella sub-centre:
  • A lower and an upper primary school and a secondary school with 179 boys and 183 girls.
  • A small library.
  • Celebration of the birthdays of Sri Ramakrishna, Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi, and Swami Vivekananda, as also Durga Puja, Kali Puja, etc.

•             The centre also runs similar schools at other places. In all, it runs 1 higher secondary school, 9 secondary schools, 18 M. E. schools and 38 lower primary schools. 9440 students studied in these schools during the year.

Vivekananda College

This centre was started in 1946.

Activities:

• Vivekananda College, an arts, science and commerce college for men, with 1741 students. It offers five undergraduate courses in Humanities and Languages, five in Physical and Natural Sciences and one in Commerce. Postgraduate courses are offered in three disciplines of Humanities and four of Science. Besides, research scholars work for M.Phil and Ph.D degrees in its Botany, Chemistry, Economics, Mathematics, Philosophy, Physics and Sanskrit departments. The NCC and NSS units had a large number of students on their rolls. The college library had 95,449 books and 72 periodicals. Scholarships given to the students amounted to Rs. 26,30,178/-.
• An evening college, which offers eight undergraduate and two postgraduate courses with 2250 students, has a library with 10,270 books and 21 periodicals.
• A hostel with 57 students.
• An Institute for Vivekananda Studies. It has a small library of its own.
• Two research institutes: (i) Vivekananda Institute of Tropical Mycology (VINSTROM), recognized by the Dept. of Bio-technology, of India, is engaged mainly in studying the biodiversity and technological potential of microfungi in forests and other environments, and (ii) Vivekananda Institute of Algal Technology (VIAT) conducts algae-based research and consultancy activities relating to industrial effluents treatment, algal biomass utilization etc.

Chennai Students’ Home

Started by Swami Ramakrishnananda (a monastic disciple of Sri Ramakrishna) in 1905 and made a branch of the Mission in 1918, this Home provides free board, lodging and education to orphan / destitute children.

Activities:

• A free residential high school with 221 boys.
• A free residential polytechnic college providing three-year diploma courses with 385 students.
• A centenary primary school with 40 children.
• A free hostel with 629 boys.
• A library with 10,870 books and 76 newspapers and periodicals.
• Computer training in Tally software for 24 boys and 51 girls.
• Celebration of the birthdays of religious personalities, Vidyarthi Homa, conducting religious classes, seminars, cultural competitions for students, etc.

Temple

The centre was started in 1932.

Activities:

• Three higher secondary schools, a primary school and a hostel. During the year, the higher secondary schools had 2946 boys and 318 girls, the primary school had 65 boys and 62 girls, and the hostel had 81 boys.
• Libraries attached to the ashrama and schools, with 38,643 books and 76 newspapers and periodicals.
• A summer camp for students (58 attended).
• Two teachers’ orientation programmes (160 attended).
• Spoken English course of 3 months’ duration (532 students during the year).
• Welfare work by way of providing buttermilk to more than 82,500 thirsty wayfarers during summer, food to 330 poor school children, medical help, scholarships and other educational help to poor students and pecuniary help to the needy.
• Religious activities: Observing the birthdays of Sri Ramakrishna, Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi, Swami Vivekananda, Vidyarthi Homa and other religious luminaries.

Chennai Temple

The centre was started in 1897 by Swami Ramakrishnananda (a monastic disciple of Sri Ramakrishna).

Activities:

• Publication of books in English and Tamil: 28 new and 311 reprints were brought out during the year.
• Publication of two monthly journals: The Vedanta Kesari (English, 103rd year with 12,500 subscribers) and Sri Ramakrishna Vijayam (Tamil, 96th year with 1,69,000 subscribers).
• A girls’ higher secondary school with 869 pupils at Sarvana Street, Mint.
• A primary school with 343 pupils at Basin Bridge Road, Mint.
• A library with a children’s section, having 39,185 books and 185 periodicals.
• Vivekananda Youth Forum conducted moral and cultural classes for 30 youths and Balmandir conducted weekly moral and educational classes for about 119 children on Sundays.
• Eighteen free coaching centres with 950 students.
• Vocational training in basic computer operations and nursing assistance. Total 347 girls trained during this year.
• A charitable allopathic-cum-homeopathic dispensary with dental, eye, ENT, surgical, X-ray, ultrasound scanning, pediatrics, ECG, gynaecology, physiotherapy and laboratory sections, and clinics for TB and diabetes. Total 3,12,039 cases were treated.
• A weekly mobile medical unit, which treated 26,694 cases.
• Regular eye camps in nearby villages (1315 patients were screened; 152 of them were operated for cataract removal).
• LAP rehabilitation programme through which 747 Leprosy Afflicted Persons (LAPs) were benefited.
• Daily worship, fortnightly Ramnam Sankirtan, weekly discourses, and celebration of the birthdays of Sri Ramakrishna, Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi, Swami Vivekananda and other spiritual personalities, as also other festivals.
• An exhibition and youth programmes at Vivekanandar Illam (Kamarajar Salai, Triplicane, Chennai 600 005), where Swami Vivekananda stayed for nine days on his return from the West in 1897.