BRANCH CONTRIBUTION HANDSHAKES WORKSHOP

The Branch Contribution Handshakes Workshops to be conducted at all branches as part of Citizen SBI Intervention II is going on in full swing at North Eastern Circle. 201 branches have completed the same so far. As a next step, branches have also started undertaking Contribution Projects!

Natarajan,
Citizen SBI
North Eastern Circle

Healing with Forgiveness

By Oswald Pereira

All faiths worldwide recommend it. There’s universal agreement among religious leaders about its benefits. Every avatar of the Supreme Being and all His prophets have preached it. It’s a prayer often recited by devotees in places of worship. And non-believers, too, are convinced of its great value. Doctors tell patients about its health benefits. Old and New Age gurus will break bread to celebrate its virtues. Pranic healers and reiki masters consider it a powerful healing tool.

Forgiveness is not as sublime as love, but it’s a divine virtue, without necessarily being godly. The Oxford English Dictionary defines forgiveness thus: “To grant free pardon and to give up all claim on account of an offence or debt”. But forgiveness is much more than that. Cynics see the act of forgiving as being one of weakness, resorted to by the meek and the cowardly. The more enlightened say only the strong are capable of it, as did M K Gandhi: “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”

Pure happiness is achieved because when you forgive a person who has done you harm, you detoxify yourself of all negative energy, free your mind, and purify your soul and body.

Studies at the University of Wisconsin found the more forgiving people were, the less they suffered from a wide range of illnesses. The benefits included improved functioning of their cardiovascular and nervous systems. Anger and resentment towards our so-called oppressors will bring us nothing but trouble and unhappiness.

“If you do not forgive, you will continue to think of the offender and the unpleasant event,” aid pranic healing master Choa Koi Sui. “By forgiving and blessing, you achieve inner peace and freedom.” Those who follow Vedantic tradition pray to God to grant happiness even to their enemies. They pray to Providence not only for their well-being, but also for the prosperity of their adversaries. Vedantic wisdom believes in a prenatal harmony, a link and celestial communion among all souls. Hence, when you hate another person, you only hate yourself.

“How often do you forgive one person? Up to seven times?” Jesus Christ was asked by his disciple Peter. Jesus replied: “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.” Jesus even asked God to forgive those who had crucified him: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” In The Lord’s Prayer, Christians pray: “And forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.”

The message is clear: Only when you forgive others will you, too, be forgiven. Allah is ‘Most Forgiving’. Prophet Muhammad forgave people for their ignorance and was ever ready to forgive his enemies.

By being unforgiving, we keep creating an identity around our pain, and that is what is reborn, Buddhists believe. In Jainism, forgiveness is propounded as one of the main virtues to be cultivated by the faithful. Supreme forgiveness forms part of one of the 10 characteristics of dharma in Jainism.

Forgiveness has great power. It is a glorious and selfless act that could radically transform the lives of both the forgiver and the forgiven – for the better.

Courtesy: TOI

The Power of Peace

By Maulana Wahiduddin Khan

The power of peace is greater than the power of violence. Peaceful methods are far more effective than violent methods. Constructive goals can be achieved only through peaceful means, while violent ways lead to destruction and ruin. 

I would like to give an example from recent Indian history. The freedom struggle of India started in 1857 and the leaders of that period wanted to achieve freedom by violent methods. This trend continued up to 1919, but the target was not achieved. 

Then Mahatma Gandhi entered the freedom struggle in 1919. After studying the situation, he decided to reverse the course of action. He declared that they would continue their freedom struggle, but it would be by a strictly peaceful method. He declared that where previous leaders had been using "bombs" of violence to protest against British rule, they would now use the "bomb" of peace to achieve the same goal. 

This declaration by Mahatma Gandhi changed the whole scenario; it paralysed the entire machinery of the British Empire. Puzzled by this announcement, one British collector sent a telegraphic message to his secretariat, worded as follows: "Wire instruction how to kill a tiger non-violently." 

The violent method gives your opponents justification for violent retaliation, but if you adopt peaceful methods, the other party has no grounds for using force against you. This was the logic of Gandhian peace methods, and very soon India became free. 

This formula of peace is of a general nature, that is, it is applicable at both individual and national levels. Adopt a peaceful course of action, and you will be guaranteed success. 

The violent method is a highly risky affair. That it will entail losses is almost certain, while its benefits are indeed doubtful. But in the case of the peaceful method, which entails no risk, success is guaranteed. 

Why is the peaceful method so effective? The reason is that the peaceful method hits the conscience of a man. And when the conscience is hit, the person concerned has no option but to surrender to you. 

The violent method activates the other party's ego. When one's ego is involved, the result is a breakdown. Violence inevitably breeds violence. So, violence only aggravates the problem. It cannot solve any problem either for the individual or for the community, country and world. 

The peaceful method is the method of nature. This is an immutable rule. Thanks to nature invariably treading the path of peace, we see that in nature everywhere there is perfection. Nature may be involved in disparate kinds of activities, but this creates no problems. And, undoubtedly, the reason is that it is steadfastly peaceful in its line of action. 

A peaceful method saves you from wasting your time and energy. Remaining peaceful helps to normalise the situation and so is constructive. Moreover, violence only breeds hatred and intolerance, while peace fosters love and compassion. Peace is the greatest social good, for it inculcates positivity among people. Where there is peace there can be developmental activities. But without a peaceful atmosphere, there can be no progress whatsoever. 

The stars, the planets, and all other aspects of nature are active day and night, but they never stray from the path of peace. Peace is the culture of nature; peace is the law of the universe. Rivers flow carrying the message of peace, the wind blowing day and night conveys this message. 

www.cpsglobal.org 

Courtesy: The Speaking Tree / Times of India

An Ambulance for Suri.

The fatal and brutal Sainthia train massacre on 19th July 2010 taught us about the essential wisdom of listening to our hearts, learning to read the omens strewn along life’s path and following our dreams. A baby was crying looking for her mother. Where is she? Who will tell me? A man’s body is hanging outside a window, but one of his hand is completely detached from his body and hanging on the next window. I have never ever witnessed such horrible scene even in film. While helping the casualties in sending them to hospital along with the local people and some employees from our Branch, an  idea sparked in my head and ignited a dream of hope for the future. Why can’t we start a charitable ambulance service by our State Bank of India Suri Branch itself, which will ply in and around Birbhum district? 

Yes, we feel that an ambulance service by us will certainly bring an unabashed delight and inspiration for man and mankind of Suri in particular and Birbhum  in the state of West Bengal. This ambulance will cater the need of the poorer section of the society completely free of cost and the maintenance cost will be borne by us. We, the CITIZENS of SBI Suri Branch are passionately committed with missionary zeal for this noble cause and feel proud to be a part of this venture. We are shaping this project as an UCFT (Core) project of SBI Citizens of Suri Branch. 

I am pouring my heart to all the few persons before whom I feel I can really open up. The droplets will surely make the ocean. Your spontaneous and whole-hearted participation in this social welfare activity will not only boost our morale but will also help us in reaching our destiny – An Ambulance for Suri.

Although this is an uphill task to garner fund for the Ambulance, we are confident to achieve this noble goal. Budget attuned at Rs.8.50 lakhs incl. maintenance cost.

Cost of operation to be included, i.e. driver’s salary and fuel (approximately an additional corpus of Rs.5.00 lakhs is needed in this regard.

A Savings Bank A/C has been opened for the purpose.

The account number is 31303596065.

We could have achieved a sum of Rs.5.78 lacs till date due to overwhelming response from every nooks and corners which includes the District Magistrate of Birbhum, many AGMs, CMs, different SBIOA units and SBISA units and individual Citizens of State Bank of India throughout the country.

Debangshu Sarkar, Member of UCFT (Core) 

SBI, SURI

Bengal Circle

CitizenSBI Blog is grateful to Citizen Shishir Bindu Nath for providing us this inspiring contribution.

How Mr. Condom made Thailand a better place

Talk by Mechai Viravaidya




Interactive transcript:

Welcome to Thailand. Now, when I was a young man, 40 years ago, the country was very, very poorwith lots and lots and lots of people living in poverty. We decided to do something about it, but we didn't begin with a welfare program or a poverty reduction program. But we began with a family-planning program, following a very successfulmaternal child health activity, sets of activities. So, basically, no one would accept family planning if their children didn't survive. So the first step: get to the children, get to the mothers, and then follow up with family planning. Not just child mortality alone, you need also family planning. Now let me take you back as to why we needed to do it.

In my country, that was the case in 1974. Seven children per family. Tremendous growth at 3.3 percent. There was just no future. We needed to reduce the population growth rate. So we said, "Let's do it." The women said, "We agree. We'll use pills, but we need a doctor to prescribe the pills,"and we had very, very few doctors. We didn't take no as an answer; we took no as a question. We went to the nurses and the midwives, who were also women, and did a fantastic job at explaining how to use the pill. That was wonderful, but it covered only 20 percent of the country.

What do we do for the other 80 percent -- leave them alone and say, "Well, they're not medical personnel"? No, we decided to do a bit more. So we went to the ordinary people that you saw.Actually, below that yellow sign -- I wish they hadn't wiped that, because there was "Coca-Cola" there.We were so much bigger than Coca-Cola in those days. And no difference, the people they chose, were the people we chose. They were well-known in the community, they knew that customers were always right, and they were terrific, and they practiced the family planning themselves. So they could supply pills and condoms throughout the country, in every village of the country. There we are. We went to the people who were seen as the cause of the problem to be the solution. Wherever there were people -- and you can see boats with the women -- selling things -- here's the floating market selling bananas and crabs and also contraceptives -- wherever you find people, you'll find contraceptives in Thailand.

And then we decided, why not get to religion,because in the Philippines, the Catholic Church was pretty strong, and Thai people were Buddhist.We went to them, and they said, "Look, could you help us?" I'm there, the one in blue, not the yellow,holding a bowl of holy water for the monk to sprinkle holy water on pills and condoms for the sanctity of the family. And this picture was sent throughout the country. So some of the monks in the villages were doing the same thing themselves. And the women were saying, "No wonder we have no side-effects. It's been blessed." That was their perception.

And then we went to teachers. You need everybody to be involved in trying to provide whatever it is that make humanity a better place. So we went to the teachers. Over a quarter of a million were taught about family planning with a new alphabet -- A, B for birth, C for condom, I for IUD, V for vasectomy.And then we had the snakes and ladders game, where you throw dice. If you land on anything pro-family planning, you move ahead. Like, "Mother takes the pill every night. Very good, mother. Move ahead. Uncle buys a condom. Very good, uncle. Move ahead. Uncle gets drunk, doesn't use condom. Come back, start again." (Laughter)Again, education, class entertainment. And the kids were doing it in school too. We had relay races with condoms. We had children's condom-blowing championship. And before long, the condom was know as the girl's best friend. In Thailand, for poor people, diamonds don't make it.So the condom is the girl's best friend.

We introduced our first microcredit program in 1975, and the women who organized it said, "We only want to lend to women who practice family planning. If you're pregnant, take care of your pregnancy. If you're not pregnant, you can take a loan out from us." And that was run by them. And after 35/36 years, it's still going on. It's part of the Village Development Bank. It's not a real bank, but it's a fund -- microcredit. And we didn't need a big organization to run it. It was run by the villagers themselves. And you probably hardly see a Thai man there. It's always women, women, women, women. And then we thought we'd help America,because America's been helping everyone,whether they want help or not. (Laughter) And this is on the Fourth of July. We decided to provide vasectomy to all men, but in particular, American men to the front of the queue, right up to the Ambassador's residence during his [unclear]. And the hotel gave us the ballroom for it. Very appropriate room. (Laughter) And since it was near lunch time, they said, "All right, we'll give you some lunch. Of course, it must be American cola.You get two brands, Coke and Pepsi. And then the food is either hamburger or hotdog." And I thought a hotdog will be more symbolic. (Laughter) And here is this, then, young man called Willy Bohmwho worked for the USAID. Obviously, he's had his vasectomy because his hotdog is half eaten, and he was very happy. It made a lot of news in America, and it angered some people also. I said, "Don't worry. Come over and I'll do the whole lot of you."

(Laughter)

And what happened? In all this thing, from seven children to 1.5 children. Population growth rate of 3.3 to 0.5. You could call it the Coca-Cola approach if you like. It was exactly the same thing.I'm not sure whether Coca-Cola followed us, or we followed Coca-Cola, but we're good friends. And so that's the case of everyone joining in. We didn't have a strong government. We didn't have lots of doctors. But it's everybody's job who can change attitude and behavior.

Then AIDS came along and hit Thailand, and we had to stop doing a lot of good things to fight AIDS.But unfortunately, the government was in denial, denial, denial. So our work wasn't affected. So I thought, "Well, if you can't go to the government, go to the military." So I went to the military and asked to borrow 300 radio stations. They have more than the government, and they've got more guns than the government. So I asked them, could they help us in our fight against HIV. And after I gave them statistics. They said, "Yes. Okay. You can use all the radio stations, television stations." And that's when we went onto the airwaves. And then we got a new prime minister soon after that. And he said, "Mechai, could you come and join?" He asked me in because he liked my wife a lot. So I said, "Okay."He became the chairman of the National AIDS Committee and increased the budget fifty-fold.

Every ministry, even judges, had to be involved in AIDS education. Everyone. And we said the public, institutions, religious institutions, schools --everyone was involved. And here, every media person had to be trained for HIV. And we gave every station half a minute extra for advertising to earn more money. So they were happy with that.And then AIDS education in all schools, starting from university. And these are high school kids teaching high school kids. And the best teachers were the girls, not the boys. And they were terrific.And these girls who go around teaching about safe sex and HIV were known as Mother Theresa.And then we went down one more step. These are primary school kids -- third, fourth grade -- going to every household in the village, every household in the whole of Thailand, giving AIDS information and a condom to every household, given by these young kids. And no parents objected, because we were trying to save lives, and this was a lifesaver.And we said, "Everyone needs to be involved."

So you have the companies also realizing that sick staff don't work, and dead customers don't buy. So they all trained. And then we have this Captain Condom, with his Harvard MBA, going to schools and night spots. And they loved him. You need a symbol of something. In every country, every program, you need a symbol, and this is probably the best thing he's ever done with his MBA.(Laughter) And then we gave condoms out everywhere on the streets -- everywhere, everywhere. In taxis, you get condoms. And also, in traffic, the policemen give you condoms -- our "cops and rubbers" programs. (Laughter) So, can you imagine New York policemen giving out condoms? Of course I can. And they'd enjoy it immensely. I see them standing around right now, everywhere. Imagine if they had condoms, giving out to all sorts of people. And then, new change,we had hairbands, clothing, and the condom for your mobile phone during the rainy season.

(Laughter)

And these were the condoms that we introduced.One says, "Weapon of mass protection." We found. You know, somebody here was searching for the weapon of mass destruction, but we have found the weapon of mass protection -- the condom. And then it says here, with the American flag, "Don't leave home without it." But I have some to give out afterward. But let me warn you, these are Thai-sized, so be very careful. (Laughter) And so you can see that condoms can do so many things. Look at this. I gave this to Al Gore and to Bill Senior also. Stop global warming; use condoms.And then this is the picture I mentioned to you --the weapon of mass protection. And let the next Olympics save some lives. Why just run around?(Laughter) And then finally, in Thailand we're Buddhist, we don't have a God, so instead, we say, "In rubber we trust." (Laughter) So you can see that we added everything to our endeavor to make life better for the people. We had condoms in all the refrigerators in the hotels and the schools,because alcohol impairs judgment.

And then what happened? After all this time, everybody joined in. According to the U.N., new cases of HIV declined by 90 percent. And according to the World Bank, 7.7 million lives were saved. Otherwise there wouldn't be many Thais walking around today. So it just showed you you could do something about it. 90 percent of the funding came from Thailand. There was political commitment, some financial commitment, and everybody joined in the fight. So just don't leave it to the specialists and doctors and nurses. We all need to help.

And then we decided to help people out of poverty,now that we got AIDS somewhat out of the way,this time, not with government alone, but in cooperation with the business community.Because poor people are business people who lack business skills and access to credit. Those are the things to be provided by the business community. We're trying to turn them into barefoot entrepreneurs, little business people. The only way out of poverty is through business enterprise.So, that was done. The money goes from the company into the village via tree-planting. It's not a free gift. They plant the trees, and the money goes into their microcredit fund, which we call the Village Development Bank. Everybody joins in, and they feel they own the bank, because they have brought the money in.

And before, you can borrow the money, you need to be trained. And we believe, if you want to help the poor, those who are living in poverty, access to credit must be a human right. Access to credit must be a human right. Otherwise they'll never get out of poverty. And then before getting a loan, you must be trained. Here's what we call a barefoot MBA teaching people how to do business so that, when they borrow money, they'll succeed with the business. These are some of the businesses:mushrooms, crabs, vegetables, trees, fruits, and this is very interesting -- Nike ice cream and Nike biscuits. This is a village sponsored by Nike. They said, "They should stop making shoes and clothes. Make these better, because we can afford them." And then we have silk, Thai silk. Now we're making Scottish tartans, as you can see on the left,to sell to all people of Scottish ancestors. So anyone sitting in and watching TV, get in touch with me. And then this is our answer to Starbucks in Thailand -- "Coffee and Condoms." See, Starbucks you awake, we keep you awake and alive. That's the difference. Can you imagine, at every Starbucks that you can also get condoms? You can order your condoms with your with your cappuccino.

And then now, finally, in education, we want to change the school as being underutilized into a place where it's a lifelong learning center for everyone. We call this our School-Based Integrated Rural Development. And it's a center, a focal point, for economic and social development.Re-do the school, make it serve the community needs. And here is a bamboo building. All of them are bamboo. This is a geodesic dome made of bamboo. And I'm sure Buckminster Fuller would be very, very proud to see a bamboo geodesic dome. And we use vegetables around the school ground, so they raise their own vegetables.

And then, finally, I firmly believe, if we want the MDGs to work -- the Millennium Development Goals -- we need to add family planning to it. Of course, child mortality first and then family planning. Everyone needs family planning service.It's underutilized. So we have now found the weapon of mass protection. And we also ask the next Olympics to be involved in saving lives. And then, finally, that is our network. And these are our Thai tulips.

(Laughter)

Thank you very much indeed.

(Applause)

About the speaker:

Mechai Viravaidya is the founder and chair of the Population and Community Development Association (PDA). He's a widely acclaimed leader in the fields of public health, education and community development.

Since 1974, Mr. Mechai has initiated community-based family planning services, innovative poverty reduction and rural education programs, large-scale rural development and environmental programs, as well as groundbreaking HIV/AIDS prevention activities throughout Southeast Asia.

"When I first met Mechai Viravaidya, Thailand's "Condom King," 15 years ago, it became clear that he places a high value on action and impact, even if it means making some people uncomfortable. "

Dr. Helen Gayle, TIME magazineCourtesy: TED.com