The centre in Sydney, Australia, the Ramakrishna Sarada Vedanta Society of N.S.W. conducted regularly spiritual and cultural activities in and around Sydney. Religious festivals were observed, and lectures and retreats conducted in Adelaide and other places. Pravrajika Gayatriprana, head of the centre participated in meetings of the Women’s Interfaith Network (WIN) and the World Conference of Religions for Peace (WCRP), now renamed “Religions for Peace”. A Sunday class for children was conducted regularly to acquaint them with Indian culture; weekly Sanskrit classes and yoga classes continued. Young People’s Forums (age group 17–35) were organized occasionally for personality development and integration, while members of the Vivekananda Book Club met once a month to study in-depth selected letters of Swamiji. ‘Spiritual Evenings’ on alternate Fridays were continued.
The Society maintained the Sarada Tapovan at Burwood Heights where the monastic sisters lived, the Vedanta Hall at Croydon, where the Vedanta Book Agency as well as classes and other activities were conducted, and the Bharati Retreat Centre at Darama, Robertson, a two hours’ drive from Sydney. Collection of food and clothing for donation to the needy via the Sydney City Mission continued as before. As in the previous years, visits to an old age home twice a month continued.
The centre at Colombo, Ramakrishna Sarada Mission (Lanka Branch) conducted regular worship, bhajans, Pradeep Puja, spiritual and cultural classes, lectures, a Bal Mandir etc. Special Puja was performed on the birthdays of Sri Ramakrishna, Sri Sarada Devi and Swami Vivekananda as well as on Thai Pongal, New Year and Deepawali days. The centre conducted the Matri Mandir, an old age home for women with 10 inmates, Sri Sarada Balika Mandir, a children’s home in Colombo with 30 children and also an orphanage at Matale with 22 orphans, where a Sunday School is also conducted to inculcate moral and ethical values in the children (average attendance : 40). Other charitable activities like distribution of clothes, study materials to needy students etc. continued as before. Pravrajika Sushantaprana and Pravrajika Atmadevaprana are in charge of the work as President and Secretary of the centre, respectively.
Pravrajika Prabuddhaprana left for Germany and Switzerland on 4th March, 2018 for about three weeks, where she was invited to give talks, lectures etc. while Pravrajikas Bhavaniprana and Divyanandaprana left for Toronto, Canada on 1st May for about 45 days where they had been invited to conduct retreats, satsangs & classes each followed by question answer sessions. Pravrajika Bhavaniprana was asked to unveil the statue of Swami Vivekananda at Halifax, Canada. She also visited USA for three days, during which she spoke at the Vedanta Society, New York and conducted a satsang in New Jersey.