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Rain, Rooftops, and a Celebration

Recipe for A Celebration:

15 Hard-Working Kids and their Parents
10 Volunteers and their Families
3 Months of Sweat, Tears and Classroom Management
4 Different Locations in the Ahmedabad Heat
Food Served with Love
A Dhol (Drum)
A Rainstorm.

While this recipe sounds simple, the Asmaa team can attest that the celebration on May 29 at Seva Café was a well-deserved one! To honor the hard work and effort from countless individuals, and to start off the next chapter of Asmaa’s journey, the team threw the party of the year at Ahmedabad’s Seva Café. The love and respect between the teachers, students, parents and volunteers were unmistakably clear to all that danced in the rain that night. Asmaa’s students and their families were greeted with highest honors, coming into the Café to the beat of the dhol and respected with tilaks, marks of a warm welcome. A team of volunteers, many from Indicorps’ partner NGO, Manav Sadhna, had decorated the cafe with rangoli (traditional Indian sand art), flowers and brightly colored lamps. The children were beaming as they sang and danced and celebrated their struggles and efforts to learn.

Over 50 people gathered to share a meal and to celebrate the dedication of Indicorps Intern Ajlai Basu, the volunteer teachers and to welcome SAATH to the Asmaa family. An Oscar-like awards ceremony ensued, highlighting each child’s unique talents and personalities, and also celebrating the dedication of each of the teachers involved. After a warm welcome and an ardent request to the children’s parents for their ongoing support, the party resumed its light-hearted tone. The guests moved out into Seva Café’s open-air courtyard and danced in the season’s first rainstorm long into the evening.

Did You know?

Indicorps offers a variety of programs and opportunities that encourage leadership and civic engagement. While the fellowship focuses on empowering people willing to do whatever it takes to affect change, we also have local volunteer programs in India, an established internship program, an emerging domestic program, an effort to engage late-careers seniors in development, an online volunteer opportunity site, and more....

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Inspiration

If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.

- Lila Watson