Photo Courtesy of Drashti Mehta

“In summer 2016, I went on a volunteer trip to India for my birthday and I spent three weeks there. The first two weeks, we volunteered at children’s orphanages in New Delhi and Palanpur, which is more of the countryside; the third week was mostly sightseeing. [In New Delhi] we taught them English, we played with them and gave them the love and attention they don’t get on a daily basis because there are so many of them and it’s such a poverty-stricken area. The experience in Palanpur was similar, but we also painted them a mural. The hardest part was saying goodbye because they didn’t deserve to be in the position they were in. They can’t help their situation; people can’t really help where they’re born, but the fact that I was able to volunteer a bit of my time to make their lives better was the best gift I could’ve ever received. I actually learned from one of the staff members at the orphanage that a lot of the children end up there because the mother keeps having children, but she can’t take care of all of them because they don’t have the money to. What ends up happening, especially with the daughters, is they get married off to older men so that they can be taken care of, which is so devastating. I think that experience really changed me as a person – I gained perspective on the issue of widespread poverty … it’s on a whole other scale around the world, especially in India. I now have a personal connection to that, so when it’s discussed in a political science course or just in a general discourse, I not only understand it on a basic level but also on a subliminal level.”