Today our group visited the Mother Miracle School.    You may have listened to my recent podcast with the founders of the school Patrick and Shahla.  They opened the school to reach out to some of India’s poorest children based on the belief that if you give a child access to nutritious meals, basic medical care, clothes and a quality education, they can grow and flourish.

The school is situated in one of Rishikesh’s poorest slums and the children who attend often forgo regular meals, have dirty and disheveled clothes and their public school education is in cramped quarters offering little to challenge their young minds and the Mother Miracle school answers those needs in such a beautiful and heart-felt way.

Mother Miracle is supported solely by donations and volunteers and I am proud to report that my students back home raised over $750 this year which will go toward improving the school and expanding services.  In addition to the money we raised back in San Francisco all of the students to traveled with me to India volunteered to teach arts and crafts, English, math and even American Sign Language— A skill very important in India as most deaf children are put in orphanages with little hope of advancement in life.

The children are a joy to be with.  Although most of their parents don’t speak English, a skill essential to earning a sustainable living in India, even the preschool children are able to converse quite well.  In fact, the children even taught me to spell “Hippopotamus”.  (An impressive feat considering I had to rely on my computer’s spell-check feature to write this post. )

What started as a few children in Patrick and Shahla’s modest living room has grown to over 400 and some of their earliest students are now teaching the younger children and helping to run the school.  Many hope to find the funds to go on to college and given their passion for learning, the only thing holding them back is money.   Two of my Students, Jeffrey and Robert were so inspired by the passion these children have for learning that they have started a scholarship fund to help one young man go to college, but many others still need support.  For example, one girl desperately wants to become a doctor—something impossible to imagine for a young India girl from a small village.  But that dream is almost within her reach if she can find the funding.

Last year, my students back in San Francisco raised enough money to build a computer lab for the children where a dedication hangs on the wall in their honor.  And to maximize the use of that room, night classes are now offered for adults who want to gain much needed computer skills if they hope to elevate their families out of poverty.

The school also offers a sponsorship program in which donors can support a child and become “friends” with that child.  Because all the children are trying to learn basic computer skills, having an email friend back in the states enables them to practice both their English, their writing and they computer skill and it allows donor to feel more connected to the child they are sponsoring.  One of my students, Michael has been sponsoring a three boys for over a year now and when he attended the retreat with me this year, he was able to spend time with the boys who delighted in showing him around town and even inviting him to their home for dinner.  And as if that were not enough of an honor, he has been invited to an Indian wedding with the sister of one of the boys, which is an amazing and rare honor.  He is trying to extend his stay in India so as to participate.

Finally, the children, who are full of love and smiles in spite of their poverty, learned that a woman in our group, Heidi, was celebrating her birthday.  So they gathered around her and sang “Happy Birthday”.  Actually, they sang to her twice because they had difficulty pronouncing her name and they wanted to be sure to honor her properly.  They thought they had offended her when she began to sob until Shahla explained to them that they were tears of joy!  So they rushed into give her a hug.  Heidi later told me it was the best birthday of her life!