Throughout my childhood, my family and I often visited our grandparents' humble abode in India during the summer/fall time. Due to my young age at the time I had failed to really see anything wrong with the country and often thought of these trips as a vacation or a means of fun times.

One day, in the extreme summer heat I was playing outside with my younger sisters and we noticed two girls around the same age as us sitting out in the blazing heat. It was around school time and we were confused why they were not in school.

Later that evening we asked our grandmother why they weren't in school. She had explained to us that in India low-class women/females did not attend school due to their poverty; they had always worked alongside their mothers to support the family. 

After the summer had ended I had returned back home to the United States and devised a plan with my sisters. We had decided to save as much money as we could for those young girls back in India. So as time went on we saved up on as much money as we could from chores and weekly allowances in order to cover the necessary tuition for those girls. The following summer we returned back to India and we brought along with us around $500 of total saved money for those girls. We had given it to our grandmother who had then given it to the families of those young girls. Me and my fellow sisters had felt accomplished. We felt like we had given back to society at such a young age and had felt on top of the world. We decided to keep doing this every year and save up on as much money as we can to benefit as many people as we can.

This feeling of achievement only lasted around a year because the following summer we had found out that the money we saved wasn't used for the girls' education. We came back and saw the same girls sitting on the porch outside the garden in the same summer heat while we were playing outside. 

My grandma had explained to us that their families had spent the money on themselves rather than spending it on the girls' education. They were still very appreciative of the donation. But we still felt the need to help other girls in a similar situation around the country.

That is when we came across Mrs. Simmi Sahota, Director of the Dasmesh Public School, in Ramraj, Uttar Pradesh India. She was a member of the World Human Rights Protection Commission and was recognized and awarded a degree of Doctor of Social Work. She is running a school in the financially challenged backward area of India. She faces the dilemma of young girls dropping out of school due to increased tuition prices and lack of funds. Together we came up with the plan to select the right candidate to fund every year and help those girls stay in school. Without Mrs. Simmi Sahota none of this could be possible!