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Please join us on the night of Friday November 11th 2011 (11/11/11!) for a World-Wide Full-Moon All-Night Fundraising Meditation in aid of the ‘Bihar Girls Project’.  

The event will be initiated by Triratna’s India-based National Network of Buddhist Youth (NNBY), who’ll launch the proceedings on the actual full moon night of Nov 10th ; this will be the culmination of a big retreat they are leading at Bodh Gaya (place of the Buddha’s Enlightenment!)  We’ll pick it up on the Friday night, 11/11/11, and thereby create a world-wide 24-hour ‘Metta Wave’.

 

Please join us in meditation, please get your friends to sponsor you!  Our target is £2,000 or more, this will be used for NNBY’s radical ‘Bihar Girls Project’.  Read on to find what it’s all about...

 

NNBY is Triratna’s national network of young Buddhists in India. Check them out at nnby.org .  Although there are few Buddhists in Bihar, they have decided to focus their efforts there due to its central importance for Buddhism and the terrible conditions of most of the people there.  It is plagued by caste violence (*), and social conditioning makes it almost impossible for anyone, especially girls, to better themselves or to take up a spiritual path, including Buddhism.  Child marriage is endemic with 67% of girls married before they  are 18 (**) 

 

As a result they have created the ‘Bihar Girls Project’ where scholarships are being offered to Bihar girls to continue and complete their education in Nagpur, Maharastra.  It is a 1000km away across India and a different world socially, economically, and culturally - and centre of the Buddhist  revival in India.  This will offer the girls a chance to step decisively out of the restrictive conditions (and great pressure to get married) they experience in Bihar, and give them the freedom to pursue their spiritual practice.  In course they will return to Bihar stronger, more confident, better able to choose their own path in life - and be an example to many many more.  

 

The first four girls - Priyanka, Kavita, Manju, and Jayanti - have already moved to Nagpur and taken up their studies there, and others will join them.  We’re joining NNBY in a fundraising drive to support them - the cost is only £1,000 per girl per year, and much of the fundraising is being done locally in Nagpur, with NNBY appealing to their supporters in the local Buddhist community.  Already it is an India-wide initiative - but they want to make it world-wide!  

 

Hence we are appealing for you to join us in meditation on the night of 11/11/11, and to support the Bihar Girls with your donations.  

 

Our target of £2,000 will allow the first year of the project to proceed with confidence - it’s already started so please donate now!

 

With thanks from Chetan, Lokabandhu, and the NNBY team

 

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* ref: www.unhcr.org/refworld/country,,HRW,,IND,4562d8cf2,3ae6a83f0,0.html 

** ref: www.dnaindia.com/india/report_bihar-hotspot-of-child-marriage_1418802