INEB organized the 2006 ?Young Bodhisattva? Youth Buddhist Leadership Training for Spiritual Resurgence and Social Transformation during 16 May – 24 June 2006. There are young monks, nuns and laypeople from Southeast Asia and South Asia. We have for the first time new members from Shan State (in Myanmar) Tibet (in China) and Ladakh (in India). They spent six week in learning about current situation in Asia, Buddhist teachings to understand violence within ourselves and in social structure, several development projects and basic skill of social work. The program also offered a meditation retreat in forest monastery.
Alumni?s activities
India April 2006: Prashant Varma (our alumni in 2004) and Jennifer Yo (alumni from INEB Youth Camp in 2005) organized a training for Dalit Buddhist youth in Dehradun.
Indonesia May 2006: Eddy Setiawan is our alumni in 2004, now the leader of HIKMAHBUDHI (The Union of Indonesian Buddhist Students. In May 2006 his organization provided relief and helped remove damage houses for survivors of earthquake in Yokyakarta
India July 2006: Suresh Chandra Bauddha, President of Youth Buddhist Society of India, was INEB Youth Buddhist Leadership Training alumni in 2005. In 8-10 July 2006 he organized “Buddha and World peace” conference in Manipuri, UP, India, where around 4,000 people turned up. He said in his report, ?it was a first historical Buddha ‘s teaching among the shakya family, 95% shakya family were attend teaching. People have learnt real Buddhism without any criticism. It was a big news in news papers forr continuously 8 days. We hope it was a foundation of Buddhism in 21st century among the Shakya family?.
Myanmar In August 2006 we got a letter from Bo Bo (Young Bodhisattva Alumni 2005) as follows:
?I am back to AIT, Thailand at the end of July. I am very happy to receive emails from our dharma friends and know their activities and programs in their areas.
I also have conducted a small activity and I here would like to share about it. I tried to organize a youth gathering at my hometown during my stay in Myanmar for my research survey. Fortunately, I have some friends who are also very interested in development. Due to their participation and support from some local development organizations’ support, we could conduct a youths’ gathering so called “Buddhist Youths’ Meeting fro Spiritual Development” at a monastery in my home town for 3 days.
It was actually the idea we (U Sasana and I) were dreaming about to do during our INEB’s training in Ashram, many thanks to INEB and SEM for motivating me to carry out such a wonderful occasion. I could share the development concept and religious affair to my young people based on what we have learned from our TOT.
It took 3 days and we discussed about
# Religious Affair (Basic Buddhism, How to be a good Buddhist, Buddhist Youths’ Opinion on other religions for building interfaith),
# Social Affair (Youths and their social problems, Modernization and globalization, Peace, Culture)
# Developmental Affair (have a glance on what other Faith based organizations are doing for community development, Development concept, NGOs’ role, dreaming/imagination for future activities of Volunteerism)
I was very happy to do it. There were almost 40 participants (most are university students) attended. In the future, I hope we can organize International level for Youth’s movement for World Peace by cooperating with different religious groups. Comments are warmly welcomed. Have a good time!?
