Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Lisa's Bangalore connection

Tinu, 7, hyper-active; fond of chicken biryani; wants to grow up to be a policeman.
(below) Santosh,12, quiet; noodles; engineer.

They are among Lisa Morais' 39 children she came to 'adopt' during her volunteering stint at a Bangalore orphanage last summer. Her work triggered the spirit of giving in the public-spirited Suresh, who messaged Lisa, saying he had decided to donate part of his pay for the uplift of the orphans and the disabled.
Other messages : 1) I am relocating to Bangalore and interested to do some voluntary work for children and senior citizens - Nash.

2) I am a montessori teacher;want to help disabled children...to work for them. Where I can go for this, in Bangalore - Shanthi

3) I want to stay with and teach orphanage students,doing a day job to earn my living - Kamal

Who is this Lisa ? A New Hampshire school teacher who did four months of volunteer work at an orphanage in Bangalore. The experience so impacted Lisa that, on her return to the US, she organised fund-raising events, made slide-show presentations, and set up a blog to spread community awareness about the orphanage.

Vincy (eight months)
The senior most, Sugandhi,16

Bangalore-based Grace Fellowship Charitable Trust runs a home for 39 orphaned and abandoned boys and girls. The youngest is Vincy, eight-months; and the senior most is sixteen-year-old Sugandhi. Lisa lists them all in her blog, with photo and thumb-sketch of their personality traits, their likes, interests, and aspirations. Sugandhi, described as calm, caring and helpful, loves noodles, and wants to be a teacher. So do eight others.

Mini,12. abhi,11.

Others in the orphanage wish to be doctors, engineers, pastors and policemen. Maybe, their exposure to a host of other professionals, such as scientist,aviators,techies and fashion designers, would widen their worldview. Kamal, Nash, Shanti and Suresh would do well to mobilise their professionl contacts to visit the orphanage and interact with the children.
The Bangalore-based Volunteers could work with the orphanage trustees to orgnise group visits of these children to offices and factories to give them a feel of various workplaces. Periodical visits to old people's homes can widen children's horizons.

How we connected with Liza

1 comment:

Bhavesh Chhatbar said...

Quite a different post compared to what is getting published in the bloggers' world.

Nice one.

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