On Sunday, 28th June 2015, the IOJ Education Team drove to Leicester at the invitation of Shri Smrutiben Shah, Religious Portfolio Holder, OAUK Leicester Branch. A two hour inter-active session on Jiva and Ajiva had been arranged at the Coleman Neighbourhood Centre. The session was attended by 40 people who, after initial hesitation, participated well to make it an interactive session. The session was managed mainly in Gujarati,
especially for the ladies in the audience who showed more knowledge of Jainism than the men folk who were more inclined to leave things to Jineshvaras to ‘help’ us as and when necessary! The session was conducted in two parts; the first facilitated by Trusit Shah, addressed Jiva in relation to Ajiva. The second facilitated by Jyotsna Samji addressed the various classifications of Jiva. Some stanzas from Shrimad’s ‘Jada ne Chetan’ were used to emphasise the key points, together with well known stavans which the audience enjoyed very much. A poster on Nav Tattva was displayed along with some books published by IoJ and some others useful in self-study. The audience made good use of the leg stretch break to browse the books and showed an extensive interest in the poster. Their questions were addressed by Jyotsna Shah who manned the display. The Jainism Workshop planned for 19th July was publicised.
L to R Jyotsna Shah, Trusit Shah & Jyotsna Samji
The Team provided ‘post-it’ notes to the audience so that they could write their questions, if they were shy of public speaking. The Q & A session was well managed by the team.
Refreshments were provided courtesy Lataben and Hasmukhbhai.. OAUK Leicester Chairperson, Shree Nikunj Prabhulal Shah thanked both Jyotsnabens and Trusitben for making the session easy to understand and lively. He also made a donation on behalf of OAUK Leicester which was much appreciated by the Team.
The team also thanked him and his team for organising the event and and giving them the opportunity to present..