Ayurveda Mother and Infant (AMI)

The past three months have been a time of preparation and opportunities for AMI. Our core team was invited to attend the World Culture Festival being held on the National Mall in Washington DC, from the 29th September to the 1st October. The theme of course was Peace which brought over 1 million likeminded people together.

“The purpose of the World Culture Festival is to send a message that the whole world is one family and we can all coexist with our differences. It is an opportunity for leaders from all segments of society - business, politics, religion, academia - to come together and renew their vision to work for the common welfare.

The Festival provides a platform for the preservation of local and indigenous traditions through music and dance as well as the opportunity for everyone else to relish and enjoy. This is a movement for the revival of universal human values such as love, compassion, and friendliness.” – Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

The atmosphere was joyful and relaxed with a strong sense of celebration, our feet tapped in the evening to colourful music and dance from around the world. During the day we spread our message for the care needed for Mothers and their Infants from two Ayurvedic tents run by our US counterparts.

We achieved some great milestones, being part of the WCF Ayurveda Tents together with Sri Sri Tattva, Shankara and Boone International Center, gaining brand recognition and awareness both within the US AOL organization and the
general public. We delivered a great number of live workshops and one on one Q&As, we were all wearing the same purple Volunteer T-shirts as the US groups and it was the coming together of a big team all pulling in the same direction.

Our second opportunity is to begin the task of supporting Mothers with young babies in areas of high distress. Many women give up breastfeeding or have never started and rely on milk formulas. They do not realise the incidence of
infant mortality is high due to the insanitary conditions which prevail in such areas.

There is much work to be done to educate and support women that breastmilk is best for their infants. We intend to run a campaign in the near future to raise funds to support those working in this field and to train our own Art of Living
people in the necessity to care for mothers and infants in this way.

All in all, a very busy 3 months.