By Kulavati Krishnapriya Devi Dasi
In a recent interview with ISKCON News, Praghosa Das shared important details about the establishment of the European Leadership Mela (ELM), its aims and significance in contemporary times, and the agenda for this year’s Fall ELM event.
The History and Mission of the ELM
“In Europe, just before 1997, a few years prior to the establishment of the ELM, the European RGB (Regional Governing Board) was created. In many ways, this body acts as a mini GBC for the European region,” said Praghosa Das. “The GBC body, having a fixed number of members but needing to manage an ever-growing worldwide movement, was faced with the challenge of whether to expand the GBC body continuously, which could hinder its functionality or to create a regional body to alleviate the international body’s workload.”
Although the international body remains crucial, projecting Srila Prabhupada’s vision and maintaining all the standards he put in place are best accomplished by regional bodies like the RGBs, which enable more localized governance. He continued, “Thus, the RGBs were established to allow regions like Europe to handle their issues independently as much as possible, while still referring some matters to the GBC body. We started with about 15 devotees, which was a very small representation of the many thousands of devotees in Europe. This led to the concept of the ELM, initially named the European Leaders Meeting, now known as the European Leaders Mela. The idea was to expand the leadership body beyond the RGB members to include a wider range of leaders, such as temple presidents, sankirtana leaders, project leaders, and others, representing all the leadership activities going on in Europe and congregating once a year for a Mela.”
Read more: https://iskconnews.org/the-20-year-history-of-the-european-leadership-mela-and-its-vision-for-the-future/
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