Hello America! The Hindus Are Here And We’d Like to Help You!

An overview of our upcoming White House conference, and what this work means to me (i.e. Saumya Arya Haas). Read the full article at Huffington Post.

Photo by flickr user dcJohn

“Through HASC's mission, I have found a way to make my Hinduness part of my American life, and to see that my religious heritage inspires innovative solutions for issues and challenges of the society I live in. I feel less isolated. I've realized that the light cast by Hindu-American lamps travels beyond our own small concerns and community, and that we are not adrift, but rather carried by currents of our own time and place, our own country.”

White House recognizes Hindu American Seva Charities at the Social Innovators Conference

Joshua DuBois, White House Office Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, Jon Rosenberg, Repair the World, Anju Bhargava, Hindu American Seva Charities, Bethany Huang, IMJ Institute, Eugene Cho, One Day’s Wages

The Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships and the Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation, in coordination with the Office of Public Engagement, invited Anju Bhargava. Founder, Hindu American Seva Charities to the White House on the afternoon of Wednesday, July 11 to participate in a forum to discuss the important role that faith-based social innovators play in expanding opportunity and addressing social issues. Anju Bhargava was one of 10 speakers at the inaugural White House Faith-Based Social Innovators Conference.

Senior Administration officials as well as leading faith-based social innovators from around the country came together for this event. The afternoon was comprised of a series of briefings, panels, and small-and-large group discussions that explored how faith-based organizations are creating innovative models and entrepreneurial ventures to make a positive impact on our economy and our society, often while serving our most vulnerable communities.

In a TED style conversations, Anju Bhargava stressed that Seva is an important part of our Dharma and sadhana (spiritual practice) and tremendous seva effort is currently undertaken across the country. She highlighted the transformative social justice effort undertaken in Wichita, Kansas. Seva bridged faith and culture divides and brought the voice of our community to the forefront at a town-hall meeting. She pointed out our faith community has much to offer. But, the Dharmic communities’ faith infrastructures are in early phases of development with minimal data collection capacity to obtain grants and funding. She emphasized that with the increased understanding by all stakeholders including the social innovators of diverse faith, the talent of our Dharmic community could be harnessed exponentially, for the common good.

HASC is honored to be recognized as a pioneering social innovator, the one of its kind Hindu/Dharmic organization. Joshua DuBois praised the ground-breaking efforts and accomplishments achieved in a short time.

HASC is continuing to develop Dharmic capacity and programs to serve. HASC’s next annual conference Dharmic American Future: Seva, Innovation, Tradition will be held on August 3^rd and 4^th at the White House and Georgetown University.

HASC encourages social innovators to apply for its new Next Generation Seva Leaders Program.