Jain Digest 2005 07

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

Page 39

Jain, Dr. Jagdish Prasad Jain, Pdt. Khemchandra Jain, Praksh Dalal who was one of the three Judges, was impressed by the Jain, Dr. N.L. Kachhara, Arvind Shah, Rakshaben Shah, Pravin interest youth showed in cooking. Dhrumil Purohit, a raw food K Shah, Manubhai Doshi, Girishbhai Shah, Dr. Yashwant vegan, demonstrated various recipes for raw food diet. Malaiya, Dr. Jitendra Shah, Hira Ratan Manek, Dr. N. P. Jain, Dr. Sudhir V Shah, Pt. Jayesh Khona, Dr. Hema Pokharna and And as always, most attended event with the youth was Chandrakant Mehta.
the cruise which took close to 600 youth around the San
Francisco Bay. A movie-mela night for the younger youth too Youth Programs & Activities. With nearly a third of young to join the cruise was also highly popular. Lecture sesthe attendees being the youth this year, there were a variety of sions on Saturday and Sunday were well subscribed. Dr. Luskin events for the younger generation organized by Nita spoke on Forgiveness, Robert Arnett spoke on Unity in Itchhaporia, Arpan Shah, and Chirag Shah as Chair and co- Diversity, East and West, Dr. Schwartz spoke to the JNF group chairs of Youth Programming Committee. The youth program on Relationships and Communication and Miscommunication extended the convention theme as "Extending Jain Heritage in between men and women and Dr. Singhvi talked about higher the Western Environment through Charity, Compassion and consciousness in marriage. Communication". There were three social events going on simultaneously in the evenings and multiple activities both on The Youth Programming Committee also organized and off site. This was the first convention in which a full day was the 7th Jain Academic Bowl. The Jain Academic Bowl is a devoted to charity and compassion with youth not only hearing friendly competition that tests the knowledge of youth and is about charity but by actually doing hands on charity work in held at every JAINA Convention. The teams compete with multiple different venue sites both on site and off site. One of other teams in a three round game-show style Academic Bowl. Bay area youth designed a special Charity T-Shirt for all the The two teams with the best record and highest number of wins youth to wear so they can focus on the seva and not on their proceed to the finals round. At this convention, teams from dress. Programs were designed for youth doing seva for the envi- Boston, Chicago, Northern California (Bay Area), and ronment, animal rights and random acts of kindness, homeless- Pittsburgh participated. After three rounds, Chicago and ness and much more. They had partner organizations that sup- Pittsburgh advanced to the finals round. Harder questions were ported them such as: Charity Focus, Be-The-Cause, and Liwa asked throughout the final round leading to a victory by Communications. It was amazing mixture of resolve, ingenuity, Chicago. focus and talented youths.
Mind-Body Programs & Social-Health-Women's The most Forum - The Convention Activities started from 6:30 a.m. I popular area offered from Pratikrman, Sun Gazing workshops, Yoga, Bhangra was the Jain and Bollywood Aerobics to Preksha Meditation. Swami Networking Shrutpragya showed various yogic Aasans to attendees. That sesForum sion was fully packed even at that early morning. Anuradha Individuals Paudwal and her daughter Kavita recited Bhktamar Stotra in wanted to join their melodious voices. The Bhkatamber Stotra was also out of friend- explained after every four stanzas by Muni Jinchandraji. Over ship, relation- 10 sessions on topics covering health, women's perspectives, ship, and net- senior citizen perspectives, child raising and medical education
working and for the attendees interested in social issues. The topics covered for marriage. More than 500 youth joined in before they closed included Empowerment of women thorough religion, Women's the doors due to capacity limit disappointing many. Iron Chef a health, High prevalence of CVD in South Asians, senior forum, cooking competition was attended by 300 youths and Tarla parenting forum etc.
JAINA CONVENTION 2005 HIGHLIGHTS
ORG:
JAM CONVENTION 2005
37. JAIN DIGEST SUMMER 2005
Jain Education Intemational