Impact – Manonmani

Art of Living's Impact

40 years. 180 countries. An estimated 450 million people. 30,000 trainer network. Millions of volunteers.

For the past 40 years, The Art of Living has led millions to find deep peace and silence within while expanding their vision to serve society through dynamic action to create a violence-free and stress-free world.

The Art of Living offers practical tools and frameworks developed by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar to help individuals manage their own minds, better connect with themselves, improve their relationships with others and take leadership actions. At its core, the focus is on strengthening individuals who, in turn, are inspired to contribute positively to societal development.

Education

Our education initiatives include:

Free schools which run in rural areas, urban slums and tribal areas with no access to road and electricity
School adoption program which assists government schools with infrastructure and manpower depending on the need
Mentoring programs for students in urban slums who are usually vulnerable to crime and addictions

Many of these schools are in areas where there are no government schools. These schools successfully deliver a holistic curriculum that is a balance of modern education and ancient wisdom

Most of the children are first generation learners. They are provided textbooks, uniforms, mid-day meals and in some cases transportation free of cost. The practice of yoga and meditation is integrated into the curriculum of the school and co-curricular activities such as dance, drama, sports, arts and crafts, literary competitions, tree planting campaigns and educational trips ensure the all-round development of the child.

84000+ students

are being provided free education

1262+ free schools

operated accross 22 states in India

48 girls: 52 boys ratio

higher than the national average

1,500 teachers

trained so far

138 libraries

in 11 different languages across 19 states of India

Environment

Our natural resources are getting polluted rampantly. So much that we even lack access to clean drinking water, chemical-free produce, and clean air. Environmental degradation is not only bad for us, it is also bad for the economy. Estimates suggest that environmental degradation costs India $80 billion per year, roughly 6% of its GDP.

We want to turn the situation around. Inspired by Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar’s vision, volunteers from around the world have initiated several projects to combat several serious and huge environmental crisis. Projects include large-scale tree plantations carried out under Mission Green Earth, the revival of dried rivers, cleaning polluted rivers, temple waste management, and natural farming that preserves soil quality. Our projects mostly revolve around conserving natural resources and securing rural livelihoods in the process.

81 million trees

planted worldwide

2.2 million farmers

trainined in natural farming

70 rivers

and 1000+ water bodies being rejuvenated

512 tons of garbage

removed during the Clean Yamuna Campaign

43,980 cleanliness drives

conducted successfully

18 waste management plants

Installed at large temples and urban cities

Women Empowerment

The Art of Living’s approach to empowerment is driven by several parameters:

A change in mindset: Our awareness and sensitization campaigns have positively changed mindsets and have brought 1 million to pledge to protect the girl child in the past.
Better access to health: We’ve organized medical camps for disadvantaged women both in rural and urban areas.
Provision of training: Our central approach to women empowerment is providing life-skill, trauma-relief, knowledge and skill development training.
Providing a support system: A strong sense of community that develops with our training programs works as a support system throughout a woman’s journey towards self-dependence and after.

71,050+ adolescent girls

trained in menstrual health and hygiene

1,11,000 rural women

trained in vocational skills

623 Self-Help Groups

(SHGs) formed

1,10,000+ smokeless chulhas

distributed by 62 women entrepreneurs

Regular medical camps

for sex workers in Sonagachi, Asia’s largest red-light area

Rural Development

With ever-growing numbers of villagers migrating to cities for better lifestyle and employment, there is an equal and bigger need to tend to the lack in rural India. And, to fix it. We believe that a key ingredient in the recipe for a sustainable change is community participation.

Thus, when we build toilets, we sensitize masses to use them too. When we build solar centers, we train village youth to install and service solar lighting systems. When we talk about model villages, we gauge problems of a village and inspire the ones who understand them the best, the locals to become torchbearers of change.

In short, to us, infrastructure development walks hand-in-hand with people development. With this basic model, we are working to:

provide solar lighting to remotest of villages
empower rural youth and women with skill development training
build toilets and ensure communities use them
provide clean drinking water
strengthen local governance
making villages self-sustainable

62,000+ toilets

constructed in villages and slums to hygienically dispose human waste

720 villages

solar electrified

1,65,000 free workshops

for stress relief, benefiting more than 5,688,000 people

45,000+ individuals

provided safe drinking water by setting up 4 community water filters and making 78 borewells

90,200 hygiene camps

conducted, benefiting 7,869,900 people

27,400+ medical camps

organized benefiting 577,400 people

3,05,618 people trained

in various vocational skills over 14 years

Prison Program

The Art of Living Prison Program transforms the lives of people working in or incarcerated ithin the criminal justice system. This program teaches skills that reduce stress, heal trauma, and provides practical knowledge of how to handle negative emotions.

The program helps prisoners and people with a history of violence to break out of the regressive cycle of crime. We aim to ensure that every person who has to resort to crime is given an opportunity to change and start living a meaningful life.

65 countries

running our prison program

8,00,000+ inmates

Across 65 countries experienced the transformation

3,50,000 inmates

In 100 prisons in India reformed

7,000+ armed insurgents

reformed

17 skill development centers

In prisons across India

Disaster Relief

Whether floods, earthquakes or storms, our volunteers have reached disaster zones, often within hours of the disaster, rescuing victims and providing immediate food and material relief. Over medium and long-term periods, we have provided medical support, built homes, schools, provided lighting, rebuilt roads, and other infrastructure. But the game-changer is our trauma relief programs that have enabled victims to heal enough to rebuild their lives again quickly. The Art of Living, along with its sister organizations, the International Association for Human Values (IAHV) and Vyakti Vikas Kendra India (VVKI), has taken upon itself the responsibility of rehabilitating societies affected by violence and other natural disasters.

Flood Relief

River Elbe floods (Germany, August 2002) | Jakarta floods, Indonesia (February 2007 & January 2002) | Mumbai floods (India, July 2005) | Surat floods (India, August 2006) | Bihar and Assam floods, India (September 2007) | South India flood relief (2009) West Bengal, India and Bangladesh Floods (2009) | Manila Floods (September 2009) | Uttarakhand floods (2015) | Chennai floods (2015) |Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India Flood Relief (July 2017) | Kerala, India Flood Relief (August 2018)

Earthquake Relief

Gujarat earthquake, India (January 2001) | Bam earthquake, Iran (December 2003) | Kashmir & Pakistan earthquake (October 2005) | Nepal Earthquake Relief (April 2015)

Cyclone

Orissa cyclone, India (October 1999) | Hurricane Katrina USA (August 2005) | Odisha cyclone Fani (2019)

Others