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CORINNE GOODWIN, OF LEHIGH VALLEY RENAISSANCE, AND JILL LONG, OF BETHLEHEM ROTARY CLUB, RECEIVE 2020 INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY CELEBRATION AWARD FROM EMMAUS ROTARY CLUB.
EMMAUS, PA (March 9, 2021) – Prabha Sinha and Linda Mayger will receive the International Women’s Day Awards from Emmaus Rotary Club on Thursday March 11, 2021 from 7:30-8:30am at Brookside Country Club of Allentown, 901 Willow Lane, Macungie, PA.
Sinha is being honored for her work helping students in the Lehigh Valley who have the greatest needs through yoga and meditation. Mayger is being honored for her work mainly in basic education and literacy.
When Prabha’s only child her son Pratyush passed away in his twenties her grief was so deep and she used yoga to help her through each day. Pratyush was a young man who always talked of wanting to make the world a better place for those less fortunate. He was greatly effected by what he saw as inequalities in the world.
Prabha moved back to the Lehigh Valley as that is where Pratyush spent most of his life growing up. It is in the Lehigh Valley that she wanted to help make it better for younger children to deal with the pressures facing them. She started small with an after school program in an Allentown elementary school. Her thought was those children had the greatest needs. From that one school it has grown to all the Allentown elementary schools as well as middle and high schools. Jefferson School in Emmaus has approached her.
Prabha started the foundation with her husband in 2013 providing mindfulness and yoga interventions in schools and communities. In 2018-19 they reached 10,000 students in the Lehigh Valley providing mindfulness and yoga as a preemptive tool to deal with social and economic pressures.
Pat Browne helped them secure a $500,000 grant to start a pilot program in grades 1-12 in the Allentown School District called Trauma Informed Appropriate Education. The program builds through mindfulness: self-awareness management, emotional regulations and compassion, social awareness and relationship skills and responsible decision making. They believe children are the most venerable members of the community. It takes a village to raise a child and they are part of the village joining forces for a collective impact.
The website is www.pratyushsinhafoundation.org
She has been involved with two major projects:
(1) She organized the planting of a pollinator garden at the Environmental Education Center at the Saucon Valley School district. When she was the chair of the Saucon Valley Foundation for Educational Innovation, Linda was instrumental building the Environmental Education Center, by writing grants and planning fundraising projects that raised over $250,000.
(2) Linda has been one of the organizers of Saucon Valley’s book fairy project for the past four years. The project sends volunteers to read to the first graders in the Bethlehem Area School District Title 1 elementary schools twice per year and gives them books to take home.
About International Women’s Day
“International Women’s Day” is a globally united moment for women across countries to come together in hope and action. Started in the early 1900’s, the almighty and tenacious Suffragettes forged purposeful action for equality. It was the Suffragettes who started International Women’s Day, with the first officially named “international Women’s Day” event held in 1911. To this day, International Women’s Day continues to be a powerful platform globally that unifies tenacity and drives action for gender parity, while celebrating the social, cultural, economic and political achievements of women and it is celebrated on March 8.
About Rotary International, Rotary District 7430 and Emmaus Rotary Club.
Rotary International brings together a global network of volunteer leaders dedicated to tackling the world’s most pressing humanitarian challenges. Rotary connects 1.2 million members of more than 35,000 Rotary clubs in over 200 countries and geographical areas. Their work improves lives at both the local and international levels, from helping families in need in their own communities to working toward a polio-free world. Visit Rotary.org and endpolio.org for more about Rotary and its efforts to eradicate polio.
Information provided on behalf of the Emmaus Rotary Club to TVL by:
Ashley Lorah
Assistant Vice President of Affiliated Chambers for the Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce
Youth Coordinator for the Workforce Board of the Lehigh Valley
Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce
https://www.lehighvalleychamber.org/
