Purpose of Swami Abhedananda Charitable Unit
- Immunization programs for children- promoting the importance of immunization at the proper time and providing vaccines at a low cost
- Free eye checkup camps in collaboration with Birla eye hospital
- Working and creating awareness about the importance of immunization in villages
- Providing free medical checkups by specialized doctors free of cost
- Eye surgery at low cost (free cost at times)
- Prevention of diseases is better than cure
- Providing necessities during the COVID situation
- Arranging an Annual Children’s Festival for more than 35 years
HISTORY:
OBJECTIVE:
“Swami Abhedananda charitable Unit is a philanthropic charitable organization dedicated to the service of suffering humanity irrespective of caste, creed, sex, religion, and locality.”
It was established in 1967.
The trust is run by self-volunteering people who have dedicated their time and effort to make the lives of the children of society better.
Swami Abhedananda (2 October 1866 – 8 September 1939), born Kaliprasad Chandra, was a direct disciple of the 19th-century mystic Ramakrishna Paramahansa and the founder of Ramakrishna Vedanta Math. After the death of Ramakrishna, he formally became a Sanyasi along with Vivekananda and others and came to be known as “Swami Abhedananda Puri”. In 1896, Vivekananda was in London, when he asked Abhedananda to join him, and propagate the message of Vedanta in the West, which he did with great success. During the establishment of this charitable trust, the country was celebrating his 100 years death anniversary, so the trust named itself after him.
The charitable trust is established in 1967. The first president was Sachindra Nath Roy (1967-1972). Present President, 2020 onwards- Nitaipada 1st Debnath.
1st secretary was Bireswar Bhattacharya (1967-1972) and the present secretary, from 2003 onwards – Mr. Haripada Biswas.
Introduction to the internship is carried out by Mr. Haripada Biswas (present secretary) and Mr. Tulsi Chakraborty and thus we got to know about the history of the charitable trust. This trust is organizing the Annual Children’s festival in Khardah for the past 35 years. This initiative is supported by the local people who have benefitted from their service. This organization also provides cataract surgery treatment every year (this year is its 28th year of cataract treatment) to a few people which is completely free of cost. We are proud to engage ourselves in social work with this person who also helped during the Covid period by distributing food and clothes. This organization also organized an annual sports event (for 30 years) for rural children from which they get a chance to show their abilities. The volunteers organize free homeopathic health checkups. It has been 40 years since the organization is providing polio vaccines to infants. Now they also offer the BCG vaccine. For the last 15-20 years, the trust also started giving out government-endorsed vaccines at reasonable prices. The organization runs entirely on personal trust and donations without any involvement of the government. The goodwill and hard work of the members of this charitable trust have motivated us and we are proud to get involved in their work.
The immunization drive is conducted every Sunday and it starts at 10 am and continues till 12 to 12:30 pm. The parents come and get their vaccine cards updated and wait for their child’s turn to get the vaccine.
On our first day, we learned how to assist the para-medical staff while he carried out the immunization program. We handled children who were from 10 months to 4-7 years of age. They had their vaccines scheduled with the organization. This society provides families with a wide range of vaccines at a comparatively lower costs than the market price. We learned-
- To prepare injections
- To identify medicines
- To disinfect a child’s hands and legs
- How many types of vaccines are available and how they are injected
- Read a vaccine card and prepare the right dose for each
- To use injections and syringes
- How to handle a crying child and the technique to insert a syringe at a 45° angle
There are three ways in which most vaccines are given- (1) Inter-muscular, (2) Inter-derma, (3) Subcutaneous
And we also came to know that vaccines containing tetanus can cause pain and fever after administration.