Sri Sathya Sai Central Trust was founded by Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba, as a public charitable trust in 1972. The Trust is responsible for the running of the ashrams. However, the Trust has been serving society in the fields of health and education since inception. More recently, the Trust has taken up the project for supplying safe drinking water to rural areas. The guiding philosophy of the trust is that drinking water, medicine, and education, the fundamental needs of every individual, should be available to everyone free of cost.
The address of the Trust is:
Sri Sathya Sai Central Trust
Prasanthi Nilayam
Anantapur Dt., A.P. 515 134
India
The charitable activities of the Trust can be broadly classified into four categories:
Education to top of page
The Sri Sathya Sai Institute
of Higher Learning is perhaps one of the few institutions
in the country in the field of Higher Education that emphasise character
building as much as, if not more than, mere academic excellence. It
is based on Bhagawan Baba's contribution to the world of learning
in the form of Education in Human Values. The single golden thread
that runs through the gamut of all the activities of the Institute.
curricular, cocurricular, and extra curricular, is that education
is for life and not for mere living. The uniqueness of the Institute
lies in the academic environment being suffused with pure Love, and
the students being moulded in a spirit of sacrifice and service to
the community.
Health care to
top of page
Today, the cost of tertiary medical care is beyond the reach of
the average person, not to mention the poor. The provision of such
treatment has also become a commercial enterprise with all the attendant
abuses.
The guiding principle driving all the medical relief activities of the trust could be summed up as follows:
- Medicine for all: Medical aid should be the right of every individual irrespective of caste, creed, nationality, or colour.
- Medical care free from the stigma of commercialisation: The act of healing should be restored to its pristine sanctity, which can be done only when it ceases to be a commodity bought and sold in the market.
- Human Values in Medical Care: The human agents of delivery system of health care, be they health administrators, doctors, nurses, or technicians, should be perfectly human in thought, word and deed. They should demonstrate the five Human Values --Truth, Righteousness, Peace, Love, and Nonviolence-- in every act.
Relief to the Poor to top of page
The Trust undertakes various activities, such as providing food, clothing, shelter, for the benefit of the poor on a regular basis. It also conducts mass marriages entirely free of cost for the poor and needy.
The Central Trust is the nodal agency that lays down the policy guidelines for all service activities carried out by the State Trusts all over India.
In almost every town in India, Sri Sathya Sai Organisations are carrying out charitable activities for the welfare of the needy. Some of the activities undertaken are:
- Polio, blood donation, eye screening camps ,etc.
- Visits to hospitals, leprosy homes, orthopaedic centres, maternity homes with food, clothes, etc.
- Distribution of clothes and food to the poor
- Rehabilitation programmes for orphans, delinquents, etc.
- Village upliftment programmes
- Educational scholarships to the disabled.
- Various services to people in times of earthquake, floods, etc
General Public Utility to top of page
The Trust has been constructing/renovating community halls, schools, temples in a number of villages around Prasanthi Nilayam for the benefit of the local populace. The Trust has also constructed buildings to accommodate patients who come for treatment, doctors, nurses, technicians, and other paramedical staff who come from different parts of the world for rendering services free of cost. Visiting professors, educationists, intellectuals, academicians, etc. who come for delivering lectures at the University, artistes coming for cultural performances are also provided accommodation. The Trust has made suitable arrangements for the convenience of visitors to Prasanthi Nilayam who come to imbibe the moral, ethical, cultural, and human values espoused by Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba on a continuous basis.
The Trust has established convention centres with a view to promoting the cultural, moral, and ethical standards of people by conducting symposia, debates, and discussions on Indian culture and tradition
The Trust also strives to foster national integrity and unity among people by organising cultural festivals, sports, games, and competitions
Sri Sathya Sai Drinking Water Supply Project
One of the unique charitable activities undertaken by the Trust
is the provision of drinking water to lakhs of people in the drought-prone
rural areas of Anantapur, Medak, and Mahaboobnagar Districts of Andhra
Pradesh
The problem of drinking water in India is acute. Of a total number
of about 13 lakh habitats, 4 lakh habitats are either not covered
at all or only partially covered. It is therefore appropriate that
the Trust has taken the initiative for providing safe drinking water
through the Sri Sathya Sai Water Supply Project,
which has become a model for other districts in the State and the
Country.
The Sri Sathya Sai Water Supply
Project for Anantapur district was undertaken
during the years 1995-97. The Anantapur district is one of the most
chronically drought affected areas in the country, where the available
ground water has high fluoride content. It is in fact in the context
of such high fluoride content that the project was designed to make
use of surface water from the Tungabhadra Canal.
This project is unique in many ways. It is the first of its kind
in the country in its scope. Secondly, it is the first project totally
funded by a Charitable Trust. Thirdly, it was completed in a record
time.
For more information on Bhagawan Sri
Sathya Sai Baba's drinking-water projects, look
appear here.