By: Aajra Shaikh (YES 2007 - 2008, India, hosted by AFS in Bangor, ME)

As my follow-up project after the YES Alumni Interfaith Harmony Workshop, I organized an event on November 13th with the help of AFS Pune local chapter. The participants were basically the volunteers and alumni of AFS and YES. This event was organized at local level and focused more on local community. I worked with four YES alumni, three AFS volunteers, and an exchange student from Italy living in India to make this event happen.

The people who participated in this activity belong to all different faiths living in India. There were Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Atheists, Jains etc. All of them have been very active in working/volunteering with organizations of their own communities as well as with platform independent organizations.

Before we actually did this activity, I held a discussion with the participants. This mainly focused on what kinds of problems we were facing related to interfaith dialogue in our community. We sat in different groups with participants from different faiths and discussed the probable solutions to those problems.

The sole purpose of this activity was to coordinate and unite the efforts of all different faiths doing positive work with one focused theme at one specific time. We came together, worked, and supported a cause irrespective of religion or faith followed by the people in need.

I organized a meeting before the actual date of activity and asked all the volunteers and alumni to collect whatever they could to donate to homeless people, orphans, and HIV positive people. We were able to donate clothes, winter wear, books, stationary, and more, all without spending any money. 

I chose to donate to these places because these are groups where there is no conflict over religion, and no one is fighting with each other over the topic of faith and belief. They all follow their own religions and faiths and never disturb or dislike others’ faith. All of them are very busy in finding the reasons to live and eat food. They are very happy helping each other under one faith of Humanity.

http://www.yesprograms.org/sto...This united group of people taught us many things. They gave us the reasons to be thankful to have such a beautiful life full of colors. They taught us how to smile in spite of having so many difficulties and pain in life. They taught us that Humanity rules all kinds of faiths, religions and castes but for this to happen one should understand the meaning of being a human first. They taught us the meaning of life.

We carried out this activity successfully and became a reason behind someone’s smile.

After all “It is not how much we are giving, but how much love we put into giving.”