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All parts of the four programs will go together in each locality and should be taken up concurrently. The needed areas of the integrated projects in detail are as follows.

1. Economic Development Projects:
Economic Development Projects will encourage the people in the community get proper vocational training and also get micro loans to start their own small businesses including home-based manufacturing like Sewing machines for tailoring, doll making, making pooja materials for religious practice and other handicrafts. We can attract major industries and other major donors to participate in this. We also need adult education and vocational training classes for adults.

For a starving BPL population, preaching them a proper deliverance to reach the heaven of tomorrow is not the priority. For them to get out of the rut of the Hell they are living in today is first needed. So, let us get our priorities straight. Detailed argument on Sanskrit slokas or Vedic traditions, Shastras, dietary restrictions, Vegetarianism, and other habits should take the back bench. Economic development should take the first line priority, but that should be given along with the other three. If we just stop at economic support by giving away funds and material, they will sell them, spend them and come back to squire one. They need Vocational training in various arts and crafts, to develop various manufacturing units, and also better agricultural units. We can develop cooperatives with better tailoring / sewing groups, a better pottery wheel, to create art works, pots and pans in clay, china and metal, to prepare simple pooja materials to supply to temples and homes for our religious services.

2. Educational Development Projects:
Educational Development Projects will include program for children and adults. We need to develop educational programs for children, more like tutorial classes to get them motivated to study and get good grades, as there are already many schools. We also need basic and advanced Hindu Dharma classes in the tutorial classes and also Religious Practitioners courses to train teachers and preachers. We need to develop good library with books for the adult members and for school children.

They are living in very dirty surroundings as cleanliness is their last priority. Many do not even have some simple habits which are taken for granted in the big cities and in the Western world. So some educational support is also needed at the same time following the economic development. Also, many adults and children are illiterate. They do not have any help in proper school education. Tutorial classes and adult education program will be helpful to gain the necessary knowledge for economic development and becomes second priority. Some basic knowledge of our tradition, culture, history, ethics, faith and spirituality can be added at this time.

We need entertainment, training in music and dance, and group activities. We need to train them in self discipline, self help, exercise, Yoga, Meditation, martial arts and self protection training, to develop them as a social Hindu protection force of the community.

3. Social Service and Community Development Projects:
Social Development Projects will include assisting and educating the people about proper cleanliness, proper protected water supply and sanitation practices with the proper use of available public facilities. Health education and health care camps need to be organized in each area with increasing health awareness to prevent diseases like infections, hepatitis, asthma, diabetes, hypertension, heart attack and stroke.

Community health education, health camps, cleanliness, clean water supply, proper sanitary facilities, protection and prevention of infectious diseases, education on behavior modification and lifestyle changes to prevent major health problems like Diabetes, High blood pressure and cholesterol problems that might lead to strokes, heart diseases, blindness and loss of limbs are needed as social welfare projects. In addition, we need to develop a networking of other organizations involved in Child welfare, care for orphans and abandoned elderly persons and disabled persons. Many of these communities in rural areas need wells and purified water supply as a priority and also knowledge, as to why and how to keep this water clean, is needed. Many other social service activities can be planned as and when the various communities need.

4. Spiritual Development Projects:
Spiritual Development Projects as a Faith Based Initiative will include identifying small community temples of their Ishtadevatha, Grama Devatha or Kula Devatha and assisting in renovating them and conducting regular worship services following their own traditional practices. We can later introduce them to other aspects of Hindu Dharma and the Hindu philosophy by conducting musical discourses and lectures. We need to organize special training programmes for the Poojaaris, teachers and preachers and assist in their welfare.

Spiritual development can not come by simple school education, but by developing a congenial situation for the members of the Hindu community and providing a healthy, comfortable life in a proper surrounding that is ready to receive such knowledge. There should be four levels of Hindu Dharma training. First and foremost in this, we need to develop a Hindu Temple for the community where, we must encourage all members of the community to attend the services and participate in the festivals and rituals.

** Here, we should not create a new form of tradition or a temple of our personal choice, thus introducing a form of Hindu Dharma that is alien to the community. In rural areas, there are many who worship certain Grama Devathas which are non-Vedic and non-Agamic forms of Village Deities worshipped as their Kula Devatha. We must help them to develop this faith and understand how and where in fits as part of the main frame Hindu faiths and traditions. Perhaps, we can add worship of Parasakthi or Mariamman or Durga, in one form or other in the same areas, which will form the links to these Devathas. This way the community will be offered education to spiritually evolve themselves with Hindu Dharma education and exposure to various paths it offers.

** Villagers have the Tamasika forms of Bhaya Bhakthi style of blind devotional worship of a "God of Fear" for boons and protection. They worship many angels and Upa-devathas or Demi-gods. These "Devathas" are naturally existing Divine creatures with extra-ordinary powers and do both good and bad to the individuals and the society. They need our prayers and offerings for their sustenance. These are not different in status or power from the Vedic gods like Indira, Varuna, Agni, Soma and other such forms for whom Vedic rituals offer their prayers. At the same time, they are not equal to the Supreme Divine Branmam or Paramatha of Hindu faith, and Its various incarnations and manifestations. We are not sure if the popularly expressed word by the English term as "God" refers to these Devathas they worship or the Supreme Brahman. Our recitation of manthras and performance of rituals have their own proper effect on these Devathas and for our communion with the supreme. Just as in Vedic rituals, prayers to supreme Paramathama in various forms and manifestations have the ability to control the activities of the Upa-Devathas or Demi-gods to protect us from the bad effects and bless us with good effects. Parasakthi, Ganesha and Karthikeya as also Hanuman and Krishna have such protective effects. So, the villagers can be slowly introduced to the worship of Sakthi along with the Gramadevatha, if they are not doing this already.

** In urban areas, most of the population as BPL is similar, since people who have moved from the villages looking for employment opportunities, they bring many village traditions with them. Some of the higher segments of the community with which they live have different traditions; and we see a mixture of faith here. Many of them worship the manifestations like Sri Ganesha, Sri Subramanya, Sri Krishna, Sri Rama, Sri Ayyappan, Sri Hanuman and other forms. There are several small Temples in these urban areas which need proper improvement and maintenance. We can help them reconstruct and clean these areas. We need to organize groups that will clean renovate these temples and surrounding and encourage the members of the community attend the functions regularly. We need to organize spiritual education classes, basic and advanced levels, teaching of prayers and bhajans with meaning and explanation for the traditions. We need to arrange for Trikala pooja or prayer services three times a day. Here we also need to organize religious practitioners' course which will be a higher level of training to practice the rituals at home and train to be teachers and preachers for the community. At the higher levels of education, everyone interested can be offered studies and training in Sanskrit language, Veda and Agama studies along with rituals.

Note: I will write more detailed explanation of my ideas on these four topics and other development projects. I will also write some notes on the common prayer methods, powers of Manthra, the concepts of God as Paramatha and the manifestations. I will also write about the powers of these little Devathas and angels that we pray, their manifestations, their messengers of the past and present controlling people as their "god" (among Hindus, and also among Atheists and other religious groups).
Please see: http://www.bnaiyer.com/studies/concepts.html -- Bala N. Aiyer