Project: Create Jain Students Associations on college campuses to organize events like lectures, yoga, meditation, temple visits, etc.

Target: (preliminary) Assist 5-7 colleges per year in forming a Jain Student Association – where 75% of the Jains are signed up and the association has at least two events per semester. Target 75 colleges in US to have a Jain Student Associations by year 2020

Shikha Singhvi singhvi.shikha@gmail.com

Project Progress

Progress = Idea --> Team -->Submit Paperwork --> Approval--->First Meeting --->5 Meetings

Team

List of Major Tasks

Year 1:

Phase 1: Develop the Tools - Quickly find out if any other colleges have a Jain Student Associations. Contact them and see how they did it. Use their experience and your experience to develop a short and simple "How To Start a Jain Students Associations Plan."

Phase 2: Publicize the Tools - Do a general broadcast of this document to all Jains in North America. JAINA can help in this by sending an email to all parents and ask them to forward this to their kids who are in colleges.

Phase 3: Help and follow-up with a minimum of 10 colleges and meet the target of 5-7 colleges

Year 2

Phase 4: Refine the strategy and repeat Phase 2 and 3.

Rutgers University - Anekantavada Jain Association

Email from Rohit Sodhia sodhiar@eden.rutgers.edu 12/16/06 - I am very happy to announce a few days ago I received an email stating that the Anekantavada Jain Association is an officially recognized organization.

With that, I’ve met with the other board members of the organization, and we have a few events lined up for next semester, of which we will have at least 3 (if not more).

1) Jainism 101 – an open event to introduce non-Jains to Jainism, and to help reinforce ideas in Jains. After discussion of having it led by an adult from a local center or in the general area, we decided it should be a student to student talk. While we will be making a Powerpoint presentation about Jainism, I’ve been to JAINA events that talked about Jainism at a very low level, as well as items handed out to the crowd. I was hoping you could help me get some information or get in touch with someone for that, Daftary-ji.

2) We’ll be holding an event with the Rutgers Hindu Students Council of a talk about Hinduism and Jainism, similarities and differences.

3) We want to hold a “stress release” session, with some simple meditation and/or yoga techniques.

In addition we’ll also probably try to have a small charity drive for the SSCF, have 2-3 meetings through the semester just to talk about various aspects of Jainism (discussion/debate style), and if we can get funding for it, a larger event (maybe a dinner) near Mahavir Jainti. But as I said, our main goal is to get the three above mentioned events successfully ran. I am very hopeful for next semester and very much looking forward to it. I foresee a successful start.

Rohit Sodhia

How JAINA will help:

Once we formalize the project, we will have a person at JAINA level to help you with funds, promotion, free webmeeting/conference, access to email list, etc. etc.