Jain Digest 1999 04

Author(s): Federation of JAINA
Publisher: USA Federation of JAINA

Page 30

of two families living in North America from both my mother's and father's sides. But in spending the entire summer away, I missed out on activities associated with summer. Thus, I redefine this suggestion by stating that we should allow youngsters to attend other activities with their school and local youth groups - i.e. Boy Scout camps, Summer camps, Sport Clinics, etc. I believe that this can be accomplished if we can create two or three sessions during the entire summer, so that youth can attend the session that is accommodating to their schedule. Should this be permanently implemented, the benefits would be immense, starting with a strong network base and a richer understanding of Jainism. This too can easily be imple mented along with the younger youth center.
The third phase of life is from high school to college age. It is in this phase that we begin to decide possible futures, including where we want to go to college, and once we get there what to do at college. The biennial YJA conventions do a great job of facilitating this, with the possible extension to spend more time at the convention site to solidify our youth network. Anyone who has attended these conventions wishes that they could last longer. What I suggest to accomplish this is to keep the convention as it is, July fourth weekend, and to open up the two weeks surrounding the convention to allow for new and old friends to bond, and build the foundations for friendships that we can not accomplish now in three days. This can be accomplished by a two-week window of events in the host city, designed to allow for meeting on various levels, leisure, professional and everything between. While the plans for this to be implemented in the future are being laid down, the membership must also be able to help.
The fourth phase of life is from college age to early professional age. It is in this phase that we begin our career, and make our business contacts. We need to lay down a strong network of job opportunities and social contacts. While this first Young Jains Professional convention served to initiate this within our community, we need to move forward. We need to all work together to facilitate this by volunteering our time as business contact, either professionally or socially..
The next stage of life leads us to when our own children are born and to the furthering of our careers. In this stage we begin to look at the first stage from parental eyes. However, the next stage of life, our retirement years, leads to examine the differences between America and India. With the majority of our family trees spread out all over America it makes it hard for us to keep that same sense of family that we had in India. Where before it was commonplace that our family lived either in the same house or close by it is now commonplace that our family is spread out, a brother in New Jersey, a Sister in California, and a cousin in Texas. That fact coupled with the fact that it is impossible to go anywhere without your own transportation would point at the fact that having occasions where an entire family is together can be very difficult. This predicament can ideally be solved by a situation that can provide the opportunity for a generation of family to be together and allow them to learn
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about their family's history. Clearly we can't expect this and a longterm summer session to happen separately, as there is not enough time in the summer to accomplish this and allow ample time for other activities. Therefore we should target for a single session that can capture the best aspects of each of these ideas. This session would allow time for scholastic and local community activities and allow religious and familial learning to take place concurrently.
I can go back three generations and tell you all the descendents of my paternal great-grandfather, as I am sure that most of you can. But this would not have happened without spending summers with my grandparents and relatives. I therefore recommend that a Senior Center be established where residence can be either temporary or permanent. If, during the summer, the Senior Center has numerous adults there, they can serve as teachers of our history and culture to our youngsters. This will enable us to ensure that our familial history is passed down, that the family ties of friendship are shared (i.e. you can meet and really know your grandfather's best-friend's grandchildren). This will also allow our seniors to share part of their year with others in retirement, without the inconvenience of no transportation and still allow them to spend the majority of the year in a family setting. Of course to ensure that the tragedies associated with the "American Retirement Home" do not happen here there must be much initial thought provided. Perhaps those seniors that are living on their own might be interested in the community aspect of living with other seniors and be interested in helping to set up some of these summer programs for our children.
The role of increased communication will be very vital to the success of Jainism. I am working with establishing specific forums for discussions about these various topics via the Internet. As more and more people are becoming connected, the viability of using the Internet as a tool of communication will also us to work together on projects at our own pace. I am working with others to secure a series of newsgroups and chat rooms that will be specifically designed for this purpose: to increase communication about specific projects, and to further them by letting the general public be more informed the total progress, and how they can help.
CONCLUSION: JAINA has made its focus the first and two last stages of life its focus for the year. YJA has begun projects that will carry out the middle three stages. Both organizations are only comprised of a few individuals, who try, but can not do everything. If we can all take steps to build our community, whether we are young or old, and donate time and/or money we will be a closer group of people. If we can all take steps to increase and better communication between us we will be better off and hopefully without politics. If you are interested you should take that initiative and find out how you want to help and where you can help out by contacting the appropriate people, starting with the YJA and JAINA boards.
In this paper America refers to both United States of America and Canada. For more in-depth info on the history of the Halari Visa Oshwal community please visit their web page at http://www.yja.org/hvona.