To celebrate Amma's thirty years of visiting Switzerland, honorary guests, long time devotees, and those attending the program all participated in a special ceremony before the start of darshan.

The ceremony began with special words from Heidi Fürher, President of Amma Association Switzerland. Fürher, the first person to invite Amma to her home in Switzerland 30 years ago, spoke fondly of how Amma's visits, first small, have grown into incredibly wide-reaching, beautiful programs.

As the second city of Amma's 2017 Europe Tour began, Amma sat for more than 15 hours to receive thousands of people from the south of France for darshan. The sight was not unusual for this city, as Amma has been uplifting the lives of the people of Toulon for the past 20 years. To celebrate Amma's profound, long-lasting impact in the region, officials, diplomats, soldiers, and international organizations came together to show gratitude on the second day of programs in Toulon.

The Hoff Herenburg program, held at MA Center Germany in the rural town of Brombachtal,  marked the beginning of Amma's 30th year visiting her children in Europe. Many came to celebrate and honor Amma's 30 years of gracing the country with her endless love and compassion.

On the first day of programs, world champion pastry chef Bernd Siefert from Michaelstadt offered a specialty cake, exclaiming that "every celebration needs a good cake!" On the second day of programs, MA Center Germany hosted a beautiful function to honor the thirty years with a number of notable speakers.

On the occasion of Amma’s 64th Birthday in Amritapuri, India The President of India, Shri Ram Nath Kovind, presented certificates for totally free surgeries at Amrita Hospital to five onstage beneficiaries. These five individuals were representative of 1,940 economically challenged people receiving such certificates — including 200 recipients of heart surgeries, 70 of neuro surgeries, 20 of kidney transplants, 50 of head-and-neck surgeries, 50 of major gastrointestinal surgeries, 50 of urological and nephrological surgeries, 500 of dialysis treatments and 1,000 of cancer treatments.

The Honorable President of India, Shri Ram Nath Kovind, inaugurated a new charitable initiative "Jivamritam" filtration systems, at Mata Amritanandamayi Math (MA Math) in Kollam. Through this project Embracing the World, aims to provide filtration for clean drinking water to 10 million villagers throughout India.

When it comes to women, there is a great gift God has bestowed upon them: the boon of the womb. Only a woman can become a mother. Only the woman is empowered to bring a soul to Earth by rearing and nurturing the soul until the pre-destined time of birth. Only a woman can nourish the child with breast milk; a man can never do that. Women are privileged to assume the special role as a Creator, for which they have to bear responsibilities as well. So men have to appreciate and adapt themselves to the special responsibilities that women are endowed with.
– Sri Mata Amritanandamayi Devi

Burkina Faso, home to a vibrant cultural heritage as well as the largest craft market in Africa, also suffers from massive deforestation, landscape degradation, slow economic development and low life expectancy. As of 2009, there were less than 1,000 doctors in the country—that’s less than one doctor for every 10,000 people.

Our volunteers recognized the country’s need for health care support and decided to address it. The same team that has held multiple eye camps in Kenya and Mexico, treating for cataracts and refractive blindness, decided to go to Burkina Faso.

In the fall of 2016, Amrita University and UNESCO inaugurated India’s first ever chair on gender equality and women empowerment. The UNESCO chair will further the center’s goals and promote international, inter-university cooperation and networking to enhance institutional capacities and collaborative work. Gender Equality and Women Empowerment is one of UNESCO’s global priorities.