There are 4 care homes for elderly and widow mothers and 1 for elderly sadhus in Vrindavan and Radhakund, which provide 24X7 care for the 119 inhabitants.

The 4 Ashrams strive to make the lives of destitute, abandoned, and helpless elderly and widow mothers better. These Ashrams provide shelter, food, and medical assistance to the beneficiaries, along with a range of programs for emotional and spiritual well-being.

Special Active Aging program is conducted to preserve the mental and emotional health of the mothers by engaging them in recreational and developmental activities. It stimulates and improves cognitive functions, emotional state, and creative outflow of energy among the mothers. The activities include chair yoga, ball games, antakshari, paper games, book reading, spiritual movie nights, painting and craftwork, etc.

Energization exercises and yoga are conducted every day at the Ashrams. These practices allow the mothers to heal their physical ailments by channelizing their prana, improving the flow of blood in the body, strengthening their muscles and nervous system, and magnetizing their spines. As per the medical records,major improvements in the physical health of the mothers are observed within a few months of doing these exercises daily.

Daily kirtan, chanting, and healing prayers are conducted at the Ashrams by the mothers. They perform healing prayers for the ones in need, along with chanting of the Gayatri mantra and the Mahamrityunjaya jaap, on a daily basis. The mothers feel uplifted to help others with their prayers.

The Yogananda Trust has provided 328,561 free medical services and funded 64,523 surgical operations till date to the extremely poor and destitute men, women, and children of Vrindavan.

Access to complete healthcare for the poor in India is severely inadequate and even non-existent in some regions. Vrindavan met with a similar fate till a few years back with only a fraction of the destitute being able to get the much-needed medical attention, resulting in high mortality rate, unemployment, and declining health quotient of the city.

With a vision to enable universal access to healthcare for the poor, the Yogananda Trust partnered with the Ramakrishna Mission Hospital to provide free complete medical services to the impoverished in Vrindavan.

Through this collaboration, the Yogananda Trust ensures exhaustive medical care which includes admission to the hospital, surgeries, routine check-ups, post- operative care, providing medicine and medical equipment, and others, with the help of 24x7 trained professionals.

Medical assistance for the poor with no means

The beneficiaries belong to low socio-economic class with no financial means to access any form of medical care. Their conditions are known to be severe given the lack of medical attention, poor nourishment, unhygienic conditions, and unhealthy environment.

Without the assistance of the sevaks, they would not get admission into the hospital owing to the lack of proper identification documents and/or no funds to support medical care. In the absence of such a program, these patients would have negligible chances of getting any treatment.

There are 11 OPD and bedside care sevaks (full-time employees) at the hospital looking after the poor patients undergoing treatments and surgeries.

The OPD sevaks assist in getting admission into the hospital, communicating with the doctors, explaining the treatment to the patient, procuring medicines and medical equipment as per requirement.

For the ones admitted and undergoing surgeries, the bedside sevaks provide full-time care to them before and after the surgery.

With the intervention of the Yogananda Trust and collaboration with the Ramakrishna Mission Hospital, Vrindavan is witnessing a new era of unconditional access to complete healthcare for those who earlier could not afford or access medical attention.

The overall impact of improved health of the lesser-known-poor citizens of the city might be difficult to gauge but it has certainly helped to drastically change the circumstances of the city for the better.

The Yogananda Trust aspires to expand its love and compassion to all the beings of Mother Nature.

With the onset of the global pandemic, while the humans are under threat, the condition of stray animals has deteriorated as well.

In Vrindavan, feeding animals is part of a daily ritual. Since the lockdown, the movement of locals has been stopped leading to starvation of animals. During the area survey, the Yogananda Trust observed cows and monkeys dying on the roadside and dogs howling all night due to starvation.

It decided to step in and serve the starving animals. It secured permission for its ambulances and vehicles to go around the city. It collaborated with Akshay Patra to provide food for these animals. It also formed a dedicated Pashu Seva team that takes care of stray animals in Vrindavan now.

Since its conception on 27th March, the Pashu Seva initiative has been feeding a significant number of stray animals in Vrindavan (per day):

Dogs: 163 Cows: 72 Bulls: 36 Monkeys: 250

The Yogananda Trust believes in the ‘Education For All’ mission and aspires to complement the educational programs for underprivileged children running across India.

It funds the tuition fees of a total of 112 students. It supports scholarship programs in 3 schools in Vrindavan, Gajja, and Rishikesh.

In Vrindavan, it offers scholarships to 27 children to attend the Krishna Brahmaratan Vidya Mandir school. Their parents are daily wage workers and below poverty line.

In Gajja, it provides support to 50 children studying in Sikhar Academy. They are mostly single-parent children, whose father either have been killed in an accident during work or are laborers in the hills.

In Rishikesh, it supports 35 children studying in Mother Miracle School. Their parents are mostly daily wage workers.