It started to rain heavily. Nevertheless, the children came. Big, grey clouds hovered over the beautiful lime green hills overlooking our yard. Despite the rain, the community’s children came happy. They walked up to Profugo’s Center of Development (COD) with big smiles unbothered by the wet mud stuck to their shoes. It was their first Children’s Club meeting after its inauguration and they also knew Jenny, our director had come from the US with her
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She told me that I could fly, that all I had to do was believe and wings would escape from my shoulder blades and I would become a great wild eagle, a stranger to tethers and cages. No, not an eagle, but a beautiful exotic bird from the east, one that the world has never seen or classified or drawn in a science textbook. This bird, without even a name to inhibit her freedom, would
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While we here in the US often identify the summer months with sunshine, warm weather, barbeques, and beach trips, our global neighbors in India welcome the abundance of rainfall known as the Monsoon Season. For the vast majority of families in Prashanthagiri, the season brings relief from high temperatures and a renewed sense of hope for the vitality of their crop production. In addition however, this season also brings about several ailments. The wet, humid
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Quality of life, these three words have different meanings depending on whom you ask. For some, this may imply material wealth, how big one’s house is and the size of the LCD platinum TV that adorns the living room wall. For others, it may mean 3 meals in a day and a roof over one’s head. The answer may vary depending on one’s age, gender, geographic location, familial structure, culture, the list could go on
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Women and children are a key component of home finances. In many villages around the world, they often join their fathers and spouses in the fields, working long hours, and performing laborious –yet underpaid- tasks in hopes to help their families. Unfortunately, poverty and the need to survive day-by-day makes people focus on the immediate need of securing food and shelter; the long-term goals that could be achieved through education go untouched. These same
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