Overview
Behtar Life is promoting essential Life-skills for a better self and a better world.
The General Life-skills program works in synergy with the following 5 specific social causes. Each cause allows large-scale governmental and philanthropic programs to reach out to the membership-base via the behavior and culture change platform of Behtar Life.
Transforming Education
The conventional schooling system is more or less an obsolete remnant of our colonial past. The challenges and opportunities that confront mankind in the age of information and globalization are very different from those we faced in previous times. An education system designed for the industrial-age will not be able to prepare us for these changing times. An education system that qualifies more and more people to grab resources and monopolize wealth, cannot be an answer to the problems that stare at us in the 21st Century. An education system that stifles creativity and replaces it with a rat-race for degrees will not allow the human potential to blossom.
What is need is an education system that is meaningful, relevant, holistic, balanced and inclusive, which has no restrictions of access. We need an education system whose quality does not diminish with scale and where learning is a life-long adventure, an education system where the obsession for multi-dimensional growth is the ultimate sign of graduation.
At KarmYog Gunakul we are giving shape to this dream. At the Gunakul we liberate our children from the excessive burden of their academic curriculum. This is done neither by going against the academic curriculum nor by reducing the importance of the academic curriculum. It’s done by helping children to excel in their academic curriculum with minimum amount of fuss.
Transcending Consumerism
We live in times when we are bombarded with images and perceptions- images triggering a concept, concepts building a perception and perceptions sculpting a cult. To our smart phone generation perhaps, the definition of a “smart” person is often limited to savvy use of apps in maneuvering through life. But in truth, a smart person is much more than that.
He is someone who cannot be contained by boundaries. He focuses on his pursuits but transcends the myopic ends. He is biased about not being biased. The modernity wows him as strongly as the wonders of the past. He, therefore, embraces the traditional to live the modern. He is someone who believes that skills are meaningless if not packaged with soft skill…..He knows that though education prepares you for life, life provides you the real education . He is a perfect balance of perfection and imperfection, of balance and imbalance.
He believes in ‘change’ that begins with him. He maximizes utility through smart consumption. He knows when you throw something “away”, there is no “away” to throw something to. He nurtures Nature as Nature nurtures him. He is a thinker, a seeker, a doer, someone who has deciphered that “smartness” is not a Beacon marking a destination; it is an exploration within and without.
KarmYog Green Village is an invitation for such “smart people” to join the movement called KarmYog for the 21st century.
Preventing Diseases
Ours is a country where more than half of the population is still deprived of proper hygienic surrounding and medical facilities for a healthy life. Every year, this deprivation leads to mass number of deaths. No facility is enough if a better and healthier tomorrow cannot be promised to the citizens of a nation.
As a response to this call and to solve the health and hygiene issues of Howrah, KarmYog for 21st century, with the help of the Howrah Municipal Corporation, took the initiative to educate people on a mass level for a healthier and safer environment. Nirmol Poribesh Shushtho Jibon was the result. The movement began with the selection of 36 key health workers invoking the importance of a safe and clean environment.
Inculcating Civic Sense
Today, the lack of awareness on basic raod safety and traffic regulations among drivers, pedestrians and school students has become the primary reason for traffic violations. With the growing negligence towards traffic rules and Civic Sense, ‘The City of Joy’ is gradually transforming into a city of accidents.
Inspired by the Safe Drive, Save Life Campaign, initiated by the honourable chief minister of West Bengal, Smt. Mamata Banerjee, KarmYog for 21st century launched Kolkata JAAAGOa year-long mass-education campaign on essential life-skills, in association with Kolkata Police. The movement aims to improve road culture and road behaviour for a better urban experience.
Today the JAAAGO program has successfully reached various districts of West Bengal educating Civic Sense and awakening the citizens towards a better road culture.
Influencing Work Culture
With an aim to improve life and livelihood and increasing earning opportunities for the unemployed, KarmYog for 21st century launched various skill development programs to educate farmers, migrant workers, vocational trainees, and the unemployed youth. These skill-training programs are designed to help the participants train in their specific fields along with educating them towards the usage of modern technology to be able to ease their work.
This initiative gave birth to training program for the farmers of Orissa- System of Rice Intensification (SRI) with support from TATA Trusts, MWM for the migrant workers of Rajasthan, Behtar Life for the vocational trainees of Dehradun, Nashik, Nagpur, Kalyan, etc.
Along with the efforts for the unemployed youth, KarmYog has also been providing life-skills for the corporates and workplaces on issues like leadership, team management and work-life integration.
