Jun 18 2007 / Shared Smiles Are an Inspiration
by Mehr Seth, 05-06 alumna from Ahmedabad, India
hosted in Brooklyn Center, MN
It is said, SMILE and the world will smile with you…
My friends and I (YES ’05 returnees, Ahmedabad chapter), decided to do a fun and informative workshop with orphans (girls) between the ages of 8-10 years. After planning and managing to get enough sponsors for the workshop we came up with our final Agenda and on May 24, 25 and 26, we made it happen!
Those three days with the girls were a wonderful experience; one of the experiences that’ll always stay close to my heart. We watched a movie and ate lunch at restaurants together, we did activities like role-playing good habits and played games, we also talked about India and Gandhi.
The little girls have become my cutest friends forever. Their willingness to learn, their optimism and their innocence became an inspiration for me. It was hard to say good-bye…but I promised to go to their orphanage to meet them as often as possible.
Our goal was to give them a chance to experience new things, be their new brothers and sisters, bring out their talents and self-confidence. But our biggest goal was to bring smiles to their faces, and so we called our project “Smile with AFS.” :)
By doing this workshop, we also wanted to support the campaign “Save the Girl Child” which is huge in India. It adresses the important issue of the increasing gender ratio in the country due to female infanticide.
I’m proud to be a part of the project. And I’m thankful to everyone from our AFS Ahmedabad Chapter for supporting the project.
It felt nice to make them smile…
