The fourth National Yuva Varg was held on the weekend of January 14 to 16 at the wonderful campsite of Camp Woodmen in Bellville, Texas. The preparation of the Varg started right after KKM from the last week of November.
There were 3 teams of yuva karyakartas who worked in preparation of the varg: Sharirik (Ruchi Munshi, Akash Belsare and Rudra Upadhyaya), Bauddhik (Ravi Kiran ji, Santhosh ji, Aniket Pingley, Amruta Houde and Debjit Dutta) and Vyavastha (Sameer Wadwalkar, Richa Dixit, Khyati Vaidya and Niyati Vaidya). Ruchi Munshi and Akash Belsare were Varg Mukhya Shikshak and Saha Mukhya Shikshak repectively. Debjit Dutta was the Karyavaha.
The total participants were 54 including 7 adhikaris and pracharaks and vistaraks. Ma. Saumitra Ji (Vishwa Vibhag Samyojak), Ma. Ram Vaidya Ji (Vishwa Vibhag Saha Samyojak), Yelloji Mirajkar (National Karyavaha of HSS US), Anjali Patel Ji (National Saha Sevika Pramukh), Darshan Soni Ji, Digant Dash Ji, Santhosh Prabhu Ji, Vinod Shastry Ji, Sreevidya Radhakrishna Ji and Jaymin Kathiriya ji were present during the entire duration of the varg. Vinod Ji, Sreevidya Ji and Jaymin Ji were present as Shikshaks. Total 17 universities were represented from all over US (21 from WC, 5 from SW, 5 from MW, 9 from EC and 7 from SE).
Most the participants assembled in the campsite by Friday night, January 13. The Varg started on Saturday with wake up calls at 6 AM. After Ish Chintan and one set of Surya Namaskar followed by breakfast and shower the participants came together for ice breaker games where they came to know each other and bonded very well with light and fun games. A warm welcome, context setting, parichaya and explaining few rules for the camp by the varg karyavaha followed this. Next, during the udghatan bauddhik Ma. Saumitra ji set the platform for the Varg when he explained how Sangh is action in continuation of Swami Vivekananda’s vision. This was perfect with the theme of the Varg since all the activities were planned keeping SV150 in mind and with the purpose of increasing the knowledge of Swami Vivekananda’s life and message among the participants.
The rest of the day was full of a number of activities that were designed to increase interaction among all the participants, increase their understanding of Sangh and Swami Vivekananda’s life and mission. In the charcha, participants who were divided in 4 ganas learned and discussed about the concept of organization and leadership as put forward by Swami ji and Guru ji. The participants also learned about different unique experiments tried out in different campuses to run a successful yuva shakha. In the evening, there was formal inauguration of annual printed copy of the youth magazine Tattva by Vishwaroop ji of SVYASA. At night we had a wonderful inspiring katha session by Yelloji on Eknath Ranade ji and Vivekanand Rock Memorial. The day ended with a some fun filled games in ratri karyakram.
All the shakhas in the Varg were designed to improve the sharirik knowledge of the participants in different vishays: samata, yoga, niyudhha, danda. There were shikshanvidhi sessions for khel, yoga and niyuddha which are done in most of the yuva shakhas. There was also a short sharirik pradarshan by all the shiksharthis in the sayam shakha on Sunday where they demonstrated what they learned in 2 days. There were also feedback sessions on how to run different model yuva shakhas: shakhas comprising of graduate students, undergrads, grad and undergrads and young professionals where everyone got a taste of different flavor of yuva shakhas.
The Sunday activities were similar to Saturday. The highlight of the day was brainstorming and deciding action items on SV150 by each sambhag. Various teams were also formed to work on different resource building for SV150 comprising of yuva karyakartas across the nation. In one of the morning sessions different yuva projects (Tattva, SOC, YFS, Suswagatam) were explained by the respective coordinators. In the afternoon the participants were enlightened by a wonderful bauddhik by Philip Goldberg who flew from Los Angeles that morning and talked about the influence of Hindu Dharma on American society. After lunch, there was a very interesting karyashala on how working in a team is favorable than working individually.
After sayam shakha, sayam vandana and dinner there was an inspiring and stimulating session of pracharak anubhav kathan and Q/A. The day concluded with camp fire where the atmosphere got rejuvenated with the vibes of Sangh geet and patriotic songs.
On Monday morning, there was a one hour Surya Namaskar marathon session where many yuvas performed 8 sets of Surya Namaskar. The samarop bauddhik was done by Ma. Ram Vaidya ji. The bauddhik was unique where he talked about Integral Humanism and Sangh vision and in between also made us do some stretching and light exercises to keep our focus intact.
Some highlights of the varg:
1. 17 universities were represented.
2. Presence of many senior adhikaris: Ma. Saumitra Gokhale Ji and Ma. Ram Vaidya Ji were present during the entire varg.
3. The vyavastha team worked tirelessly providing all the necessities to the siksharthis.
4. Sharad Amin ji (SW Sambhag Karyavaha) and Mahesh Raghunandan ji (SW Sambhag Saha Karyavaha) were present in the Varg. Satya ji took care of the bhojan vyavastha from Sunday.
5. All the varg attendees did Surya Namaskar in formation of sun rays around a huge model of Surya Dev.
6. A small farewell to Darshan Ji who concluded his vistarakship a day after the yuva varg.
Apart from the regular sessions the attendees also got enough time to interact informally. There was also informal Q/A time with Ma. Ram Vaidya ji when the yuvas stayed awake till late night in spite of a tiring day. The overall atmosphere of the Varg was very stimulating and joyful.
Overall the Yuva Varg was a fun filled but at the same time an intense learning period of two and half days where yuva karyakartas from all over the country came together, exchanged ideas and went back with new motivations to work as Sangh karyakartas. Hopefully the Varg will provide the ideal platform for all of us to achieve our goals to maintain quality, systems and regularity in our yuva shakhas and work in the direction of executing a successful SV150 in 2013.
