Katie and Sue are heading back to India in April, and will be spending some time in widows’ ashrams in the sacred places of Vrindavan and Varanasi.

Did you know that many widows face some significant challenges in India? Many widows retreat from life, remove her jewellery and wear the colour of mourning - white. Some become a source of shame for her family, losing the right to participate in religious life and becoming socially isolated. Many of these women make their way to the sacred towns of Varanasi and Vrindavan to live in widows’ ashrams, surviving on the generosity of charity and NFPs. Vrindavan alone is home to more than 20,000 widows.

We have been given the amazing opportunity to feed these special women in Vrindavan - providing each of the 300 widows at the ashram we are visiting with dry rice and lentils which will feed them for a couple of weeks. We will do something similar in Varanasi too.

Can you help us to do that? We are holding fundraising yoga classes to help us raise this money. If you donate - what’s in it for you? This is seva - sacred service to people in need. If you choose to contribute any amount, you will also receive blessings from this seva. Or maybe some of you will see it as an offering to the Goddess Dhumavati who is said to look over widows.

We would so appreciate your help to feed these ladies and show them that they are still seen. All money raised will be used for seva. Anything left over will purchase school supplies at a slum that Katie regularly visits.

Living in devotion. Always. जय माँ  

Katie and Sue xx