I spent my three weeks holiday in August in Calcutta, India, in a volunteer project of the NGO World Cooperating. The plan was to fill the free time and leisure than 200 children who welcomed the NGO New Light. Through the program, called “There once was a circus,” we tried to approach the smaller alternatives to the use of free time and transmit values associated with the circus world, such as confidence, responsibility towards others, the concentration , solidarity … The children are mostly children of prostitutes in the red light district of Calcutta. New Light offers safe shelter, educational opportunities and health and legal assistance for children and women of his community. The 16 volunteers have taken a program full of activities we have developed during the afternoon and we’ve uploaded to the stage of a theater on the last day a success and a very special day for children and families who attended to him. Personally, I am convinced that this experience I contributes much more to me than children.

These nearly three weeks I have shared time with some children loving, with a high level of responsiveness, full of joy and open to all we wanted to teach them always with a beautiful smile. I approached a New Light, which does an admirable job, and Urmi Basu and his team. Urmi is the director of the organization and is undoubtedly the most inspiring person, generous and sensitive than I’ve ever met in my life. This experience further emphasizes my social awareness and sensitivity to my childhood too.