Mata Amritanandamay Devi (born Sudhamani, September 27, 1953) is an Indian spiritual leader revered as a saint by her followers, who also know her as "Amma", "Ammachi" or "Mother". She is widely respectedfor her humanitarian activities and is known as "the hugging saint". Early life Mata Amritanandamayi was born Sudhamani in the small village of Parayakadavu (now partially known as Amritapuri), near Kollam, Kerala in 1953 . Sudhamani was born to a fishing family of the Arayan caste. Her schooling ended when she was nine, and she began to take care of her younger siblings and the family domestic work full-time. Darshan Mata Amritanandamayi is known to the world media as 'the hugging saint'. She offers a hug to everyone who approaches her and in India she has been known to individually hug over 50,000 people in a day, sitting sometimes for over 20 hours.Worldwide, Mata Amritanandamayi is said to have hugged at least 30 million people in the past 30 years. "Darshan – The Embrace," a film on the life of Mata Amritanandamayi, was officially selected for showcasing at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival. Jan Kounen, an award winning filmmaker who was born in Netherlands and is based in France, directed the film. Manuel De La Roche of France, is the producer. Jan Kounen and his crew began shooting the footage for the film in 2003 during Amritavarsham50, Mata Amritanandamayi's 50th birthday celebrations in Kochi. The team also traveled with her on her Indian and International tours in order to complete the movie. About the film, Kounen says, "when I first took up the project and started filming, I thought, 'Amma is a good person, doing good things, in turn I can do something good for her'. But as it went on, I realized, no, I am the one who is receiving the gift" Humanitarian activities Mata Amritanandamayi Math's website describes various charitable and humanitarian projects undertaken by the organization. Examples include a program to build 100,000 homes for the poor; hospitals; orphanages; hospices; women's shelters; pension disbursements for widows; community aid centers; homes for the aged; eye clinics; and speech therapy centers. Many of Amma's centers in the US run 'Mother's Kitchen', or 'vegetarian soup-kitchens', where volunteers prepare and serve meals to the poor and needy. The M.A. Math runs around 100 schools, 20 temples, a super-speciality hospital in Kochi, feeds thousands from its kitchen, provides pensions every year to over 15,000 widows, builds 25,000 houses annually for the homeless and has 35 Amma welfare centres worldwide to spread her spiritual message M.A. Math announced a billion rupees (23 million dollars) in aid to the victims of the 2004 tsunami. The Math's relief work is happening in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry, Andaman & Nicobar islands and in Sri Lanka. In September 2005, Mata Amritanandamayi donated $1,000,000 to the Bush-Clinton Hurricane Katrina fund.She also sent a top aide to the devastated areas soon after the storm struck in the United States to assess the kind of help needed by victims. In October 2005, thousands of blankets were sent and distributed to the survivors of the Kashmir and Pakistan earthquake