In India     Other Countries

By the early 1980’s the Sathya Sai Human Values Program had begun to extend outside of India. Victor and Genoveva Kanu from United Kingdom had both attended the 1981 training workshops in EHV at Prashanthi Nilayam. They returned to the UK and, with some other British teachers, adapted the program for trail in their own school. The initial aim was to counter the flood or racial hostility and violence among students. The approach took the form of class lunches and joint outings to see good films and a number of multicultural concerts were held. These were the first experiments in extracurricular EHV activities and preceded the steps later taken to integrate the Human Values program into the academic curriculum, as was already happening in India.

In May 1983 the Spencer Park School in London started an EHV program involving students, teachers and interested parents. Activities included debates and essay competitions on social and moral issues and active participation in the welfare of schools and their local communities (e.g. Picking up litter around school buildings and so on).

In 1984 a three-day workshop on Sathya Sai EHV was held in Port Dickson, Malaysia and attended by over 100 school teachers. Since then there have been many workshops throughout Malaysia for the purpose of training Sai devotees and school teachers in the philosophy and methods of EHV and emphasizing the unity of all Faiths and the importance of selfless service.

That same year (1984) Indonesia conducted a three-day symposium on EHV in Jakarta, and the following year in Mexico City a superintendent of 16 schools requested that the Sathya Sai Human Values Program he introduced into the schools.

A conference on EHV was held in London in March 1985 and delegates from 26 different countries attended. This conference not only started training teacher-trainers (those who would conduct training workshops for EHV Teachers and school teachers) in Great Britain, but also laid the foundation for EHV training in many other countries as well.

The decisions and recommendations made during the Fourth World Conference (in 1980 at Prasanthi Nilayam) relating to Sai Spiritual Education (Bal Vikas) and the EHV program galvanized the USA Sai Organisation into action. In August 1985 an instructional EHV teacher-training workshop was conducted in Los Angeles, drawing participants from Canada, the West Indies, Latin America and the United States.

On 23 October 1986 UK Sai devotees helped conduct a workshop on EHV in Lagos, Nigeria, at which the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Education, Lagos State urged all 250 school teachers at the workshop to integrate the five Human Values into their existing curricula.

Also in 1986 two seminars on EHV were held for over 200 primary school teachers in EI-Salvador representing 12 schools. That same year the first African Conference on EHV was held at the State House in Accra, Ghana. It was attended by delegates from many countries throughout the world, including Australia. This was followed by an EHV workshop in April 1987 attended by many school teachers and a number of governmental, legal and educational dignitaries.

In June 1987 a Sathya Sai EHV workshop was held at a leading educational institution in Scotland, the Jordan Hill Teacher Training College in Glasgow, leading to public declarations of support from the chairman of the Strathclyde Education Committee responsible for designing training programs for students in education.

After attending the Malaysian EHV Conference in 1984 and 1985, and starting Human Values classes with a group of local street children in Bangkok, Sai workers in Thailand held their own EHV conferences in 1986 (Thai language) and 1987 (in English). The government became very interested and invited the Sathya Sai EHV team to provide training for all school teachers throughout Thailand. A Memorandum of Understanding was signed with the Government that the Sri Sathya Sai Organisation would give training in all 36 Teachers’ Training Colleges in Thailand. Up until late 1993, 14,000 school teachers had been trained and a Sri Sathya Sai school established so that the government of Thailand could see a working example of a model school run on EHV lines.

A decision was also made that no future school textbooks would be published in Thailand unless the Human Values were integrated into the presentation. The training of school teachers continues, free of charge, with no money being accepted from the government.

While Thailand raced ahead with its weekend training of school teachers at the rate of 400 every week, Sathya Sai put a stop to all such training across India in 1989, for a period of two years, reputedly because of governmental attempts to control and dilute the EHV Program. Later this ban extended to all school and Community EHV work throughout the world (except Thailand) from 1991 through to 1993, the reason being that those teaching the EHV Program were not living examples of the five Human Values.

In the UK, a White Paper was issued by the Government in 1993 indicating that Human Values programs must be implemented in all schools. The white Paper seemed to have been based largely upon the Teacher’s Manual (for school teachers) which had been prepared by the Sai Organisation and provided to the Minister and the National Curriculum Council. The White Paper included in its recommendations, "Collective Worship, Prayer and Silent Sitting".

After several successful years of running Community EHV classes in Bangkok and conducting weekend training workshops for thousands of school teachers, the Sathya Sai Organisation in Thailand started a Sathya Sai School at Lopburi in 1992, for primary school children, with Loraine Burrows as the guiding principal. In 1997 the school was teaching Grades 1 to 6, with Thai language as the medium of instruction. A secondary school is opened in 1998.

In 1992, Genevieve and Victor Kanu headed the establishment of the Sathya Sai School in Ndola, Zambia, a private day school for boys and girls with Grades 1 to 12. In 1997 there were 560 pupils with 33 teachers. The school has been notable since then for transforming school-dropout children into the highest academic performers in the country.

Also in 1992 the Sri Sathya Sai Vidhyamandir in Kathmandu, Nepal began as an English-medium residential school for boys and girls, with Grades 1 to 6 being taught in 1997.

In 1997 a Sathya Sai primary day school was established at Mount Warning, in northern New South Wales, Australia with 11 pupils and one teacher, Mrs Anne Evans.

In 1997 the International Sai Organisation set a goal for a Sai School to be established in every country by the year 2000. Further, each country was to set up an Institute of Education with unpaid faculty members who would have tertiary level qualifications, and with the responsibility of introducing the Sathya Sai Human Values Program to the general community through debates, forums, seminars, publications and so on.

Community EHV Classes

The early beginning of the movement to conduct Human Values classes for children in the community can be seen in the work of Victor and Genoveva Kanu during the 1980’s in the United Kingdom. Early initiatives were also made in U.S.A., Malaysia, Australia and New Zealand. In Thailand, classes for Bangkok street children began in 1985.

Many of the early workshops were for schoolteachers and interested Sai devotees, with a focus on finding ways of introducing EHV into schools.

It was not until the three-day international workshop at Prasanthi Nilayam in December 1986 that a heightened focus on developing EHV classes in the community was seen. Participants from many countries returned home and began setting up training programs for Sai Teachers so they could run Community EHV classes. Further impetus was given to these initiatives by the EHV Conference in Thailand in 1987 where the reports by Loraine Burrows and Dr Art-ong Jumsai on the work with Bangkok street children inspired many to believe in the potential for Community EHV classes.

A number of countries started up new or additional after-school classes for children. In Australia alone there were Community EHV classes in five different cities by 1990.

From 1991, because of Baba’s decision to slow down the presentation of EHV to the general public, there was certain hesitancy about proceeding with EHV in most countries, right up until the Teacher Trainers’ Retreat at Prasanthi Nilayam in November 1993. The retreat gave the green light to proceed again with Community EHV and also served to re-orient attendees to the Values in the light of the two special discourses given by Sai Baba on 12 January 1992 and 20 November 1993.