ABOUT
Adideva Giridhari dasa, a disciple of His Holiness Jayapataka Swami, joined ISKCON in 1999. He gave up a lucrative career in the software industry and took up missionary work with ISKCON, inspired by the teachings of Srila Prabhupada. In ISKCON, he has handled various responsibilities: from fund-raising to heading/co-heading several departments, primarily in outreach and education. A stint in the education industry helped him develop and organize large activities and programs, which impart values, life skills, and Vedic ideology, to enhance the quality of life of school and college children through cultural education. Currently, he guides and mentors a couple of hundred devotees through the Bhakti-vriksha program, while continuing to formulate various strategies and conceive of different methodologies to enhance and enrich the personalities of students in schools and colleges through holistic education. He is married and is based out of Bengaluru, India.
SEMINAR
Social Transformation Through Cultural Education
As early as 1970, Srila Prabhupada urged innovation in preaching through a letter: “Now tax your brain to create programs for engaging the wider and wider classes of population in Krishna Consciousness.” It is not an unknown fact that there is a yawning gap between what the modern education system doles out and the expected outcome. If ISKCON can develop a strategy to bridge this gap through a broad-based program, which focuses on the all-round (physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual) development of a student, our organization can become a powerful change agent and a vital stakeholder in society, directly influencing the movements of the contemporary social structure. This seminar aims to provide a sneak-peek into one such strategy, its structure, operations, and possible outcomes. This is a successfully-tested strategy that will be equally effective in facilitating transformation in any individual: a student (school or college) or an adult (devotee or non-devotee).