Poster presentation is a great idea but was something new for the second World Hindu Congress held recently in Chicago. 40+ posters were prepared by individuals and teams who were part of various efforts related to Hindu community all over the world.

There was a poster related to “California Textbook Movement” by popular Hindi Kavi Shri Abhinav Shukla that detailed the legal fight of Hindu community in California to represent Hindu dharma with dignity in California textbooks. In last five years the community has been able to achieve a few outcomes as below and continues to fight for more reforms as outlined.

Outcome 1: The California Department of Education acknowledged that 2 books violated the code of religious neutrality especially in reference to Hinduism and the books were rejected.

Outcome 2: Hindu phobic content was ‘reduced’ from textbooks of 4 other publishers.

There was a poster from “Nimittekam” about “Pakistani Hindus - A genocide forgotten” describing the plight of Pakistani Hindus and continued atrocities committed on them through systematic governmental policies and societal support. Poster described chilling stats as follows and describes the work done by this organization.

Out of nearly 4 million Hindus living in Pakistan, a thousand are forced to convert every year. Another 2000 seek refuge in India every month, 3 Hindu girls are kidnapped every day usually followed by rape, forced conversion to Islam and married off to their kidnapper.

There was a poster from Sewa International about their work on “Bhutanese Refugee Empowerment” in last 11 years benefiting more than 50,000 beneficiaries in USA.

There was another poster about “Tribal Midwife or Goddess? The Curious Case of Jade Madamma” by Nalini Shivashankar describing the life of an extraordinary tribal woman in Karnataka who has assisted more than 3500 women give birth. H Sudarshan, an MBBS doctor, says that the so-called civilized society has a lot to learn from the tribals and recalls his own experience 38 years ago when this midwife refused to make a pregnant woman lie on a bed and instead made her take squat position during delivery. A view now gaining ground among advanced doctors to aid trouble-free delivery.

There was a poster on “Resilience of Cultures: Role of Language and Religion in the Context of Goa” by Prof Gajanana Prabhu Gaunkar. Poster described the Hindu identity, historical context of Goa conversions, struggle of Hindus and impact of language and impact of religion on Goa’s population. Poster concluded with details on current challenges and progress on the language and religion in Goa.

There was another poster from Sewa International on “Educating to Eliminate Generational Poverty” by Kavita Tewary. The poster described the ASPIRE (Assuring Student Performance In Remedial Education) program started by Houston chapter of Sewa that has now spread into four cities, eight centers and reaching more than 3,415 beneficiaries. ASPIRE is an after-school tutoring and mentoring program run by Sewa to help underprivileged, at-risk, low income, immigrant and refugee children.

There was another poster from Robert Arnett and Smita Turakhia on “Presenting Positive Image of India in American Schools”. Their vision is “to place ‘India Unveiled’ and ‘Finders Keepers?’ in all school libraries in USA through donations as resource books to supplement curriculum. One copy of each book per school library is our current target”. India Unveiled and Finders Keepers are the two books they have authored.

There was yet another important poster by Sriram Raghavan on “Gurukula.com” who has started a website and application called “Gurukula” that teaches Hindu culture through interactive stories. This resource (physical books, audio books, mobile app, iBooks and YouTube) can be complemented with other resources to educate Hindu children about their culture in India as well as abroad.

There were several other posters on Children education (e.g. Bal Vihar, Startalk, Vedantic perspective, I-Return, Bharatiyam, Vivekananda House), adults (Hindu marriages, Hindu culture and lifestyle studies), legal, organizational (interfaith dialogues), entrepreneurship, Hindu Chaplaincy, Disaster relief and recovery, healthcare, and may other topics.

These posters attracted a lot of people and presenters were seen passionately and patiently explain their subject matter to everyone interested.