Dharmagiri Outreach is an initiative of Kittisaro and Thanissara who founded Dharmagiri Hermitage in the Southern Drakensberg Mountains of KwaZulu Natal, South Africa in the year 2000.
Dharmagiri Outreach emerged from Kittisaro and Thanissara’s intention to respond to the needs of the rural community local to Dharmagiri Hermitage, Underberg and the Buddhist Retreat Centre (BRC) Ixopo, where they were guiding teachers for seven years. In these areas of Sisonke and KwaSani Districts social cohesion, economic empowerment and overall well being have been severely disrupted, in large part, due to the brutal consequences of legislated Apartheid. While this is true for the majority of South Africa, these particular areas were subjected to a devastating turf war leading up to the first free elections in 1994. The consequent break down of community and default to violence laid the ground for this area to become one of the main epicentres of the HIV/Aids pandemic in South Africa.
Much of the true impact of the pandemic is still hidden from public awareness. The ubiquitous funerals, the alarming increase of orphaned and vulnerable children, the appalling lack of information, the difficulty in accessing treatment and the ease with which the HIV virus spreads coupled with the numbing effect due to years of government denial, community stigma and deeply entrenched gender inequality. However, in the face of such overwhelming conditions, Dharmagiri Outreach, with the amazing help of its supporters, has been able to initiate, support and guide projects that have made an important contribution and a real difference.
In 2001 Dharmagiri Outreach initiated, with the BRC and San Francisco Insight, the Woza Moya Project which has a trained team of 4 managers, 25 Community Care Workers, a Paralegal officer and 2 Youth Coordinators. It services a community of approximately 23,000 people and through its learned experience it is now in a position to help train other emerging projects.
Dharmagiri Outreach has also been able to provide student sponsorship, school computers, water systems, school building upgrades, support of prison meditation groups, HIV educational workshops, skills trainings and numerous loans to help with funerals, buildings and general welfare.
Currently Dharmagiri Outreach is particularly delighted to support the Khuphuka Project, its great directors and wonderful team who are collectively responding to an area, uMquatsheni Community, that has been greatly disadvantaged due to its remote geographical location.
Join us at Dharmagiri Outreach, help make a difference! http://www.dharmagiri.org
In each historical period, the Dharma finds new means to unfold its potential in ways
precisely linked to that era’s distinctive conditions.
Our own era provides the appropriate stage for the transcendent truth of the Dharma
to bend back upon the world and engage human suffering at multiple levels, not in mere contemplation but in effective, relief-granting action
illuminated by its own world-transcendent goal.
