As I mentioned in my previous blog post I am interning for about 3 months in India this fall. The internship runs from August 20th to November 18th. Let me break it down for ya: ASHRAYA = SHELTER I will be spending the first 6 weeks working at Ashraya Mission Children's Home in southwest India. Ashraya is the Hindi word meaning "shelter". Ashraya Mission in a nut shell is a home for children to live who have been forced into sex trafficking and have been rescued from the brothels by another nonprofit organization called Indian Rescue Mission (basically they are the bravest men in the world, busting down doors of brothels and rescuing young women from forced prostitution). I will be doing PR for Ashraya. Keeping their website updated, maintaining social media sites- Facebook, Twitter, etc. I have never been to this region of India, so I am very excited to jump in there and learn the local customs and get to know the people the best I can despite the language barrier.
After the stint at Ashraya the team of interns and I get a week for fall break... we will be traveling to Thailand and Laos! I am extremely excited about this trip, but once I'm in that moment it will mean that I will already have to say goodbye to Ashraya and all of the wonderful people I will have met there.
ASHA = HOPE The last 6 weeks of my internship will be spent at Asha Mission Children's Home which is nestled in a cozy village on the outskirts of Delhi. Asha is the Hindi word meaning "hope". I spent three weeks at Asha last summer (July-Aug 2011) and it was wonderful. Asha Mission is home to 35 of the sweetest children in the world. It's not exactly an orphanage. All but a handful of these children have parents and sometimes they even come visit. Some of the parents though aren't able to support their families, so they have sent them to Asha. With their child living at Asha they are given 3 square meals a day, they are sent to a private school and are being educated, and most of all- they are being LOVED by the house parents- Mr and Mrs Sharma (as well as Meena Auntie. She cooks and cleans and loves on all the kidos, too). Like Ashraya, I will be doing PR work for Asha.
So, I have a lot to look forward to with this internship! I just can't wait to get on the ground over there and get to work! but quite a bit of time separates me from this experience. There are still funds to raise and bills to pay, classes to take and work shifts to sweat through. Let's do this!