Two-day visit organised for colleagues from the development sector

At Mumbai Smiles, we get many visitors who wish to see the work that we are doing in the slums of Mumbai. Some of them are students, some are working professionals, some are businesspeople, etc. It is always interesting for them to experience the social welfare and development sector, as it may be far removed from their daily lives. However, there are some rare occasions when we get to organise visits for people who work in the development sector as well, and therefore have a deeper understanding of our work and the challenges that we face.

Recently, we organised a two-day visit for Sandra, founder of Semillas de Conciencia or Seeds of the Heart, and her colleague Maria. Sandra founded the NGO in 2015 in Uttarakhand. It now runs seven schools for underprivileged children of the area. During the course of their two-day visit, Sandra and Maria visited our new project area in Kamathipura where we work with human trafficking survivors and their children. They also interacted with the Life Skills Empowerment beneficiaries at Wilson School in South Mumbai. The second day was spending visiting our project areas in Govandi and Sathe Nagar, where the two ladies interacted with the students and their parents. We concluded the visit with a mean prepared by a Self-Help Group (SHG) associated with us.

Both Sandra and Maria were deeply moved and very excited to see the work that we are doing, especially our new focus area of human trafficking victims. Maria came to know about our work on reading a book by Jaume Sanllorente, our founder. It was doubly exciting for her to see the projects on the ground after reading about them. We really enjoyed having the two ladies over. We wish them the best with their work in Uttarakhand and hope to host them again!