Hello, my name is Abisrishti Ram, a 10th grader at Novi High School and am an Impact Leader at The Peace Warrior. My vision is to help kids who have dropped out from school for various family circumstances but are interested to continue education if necessary support could be provided, those who don’t have a good education and/or no education at all who want to have good education. I named my project as ‘Igniting Minds’. I came up with this idea because I was affected severely in the COVID-19 pandemic. Both of my grandparents passed away in the span of 4 days and my great grandmother followed 6 months after. COVID-19 has been hard for all of us but has mostly impacted lower-middle class and below poverty and first generation families whose kids are now mostly not currently enrolled in school. I know that even though my family was financially stable and could still afford school and many other needs I wasn’t as focused on my schoolwork and my grades started to go down because of this pandemic. I started thinking about all the other kids out there and how much they would have struggled. This is why I want to help kids that don’t have a good education and make them have a good education.I identified a school back in India in my mom’s hometown, Chennai. The school had a lot of first-generation kids. After getting connected with the principal and the correspondent of the school and explaining my vision, they gave us a list of students who were on the verge of dropping out of school due to financial situations, which affected their families during the COVID period.To support my service oriented vision, the school management came forward to sponsor full year education for 2 kids and we informed the respective parents about this great news. There are more than 100 kids who need help and we had drafted an initial list of 10 students. There is minimal to no government support for the school and for those affected families. When I found 2 sponsors for 2 kids I felt very accomplished and happy that I could make an impact in their life through education. I was able to find another donor who agreed to sponsor one more kid through their nonprofit organization. I’m so thankful for their kind gesture. This is just the beginning of a new and wonderful journey and I will be continuing to help and serve those deserving kids every year to achieve their educational dreams. After my Igniting Minds project in India, I strongly felt education is the backbone and key to open the minds to achieve success. To continue my education project, I organized and led a Bake Sale for TPW to support their Nethra Vidyalaya school for blind children. Through the bake sale, I raised $750 including some generous donations from mentors which provided financial support for 3 children education and boarding for a whole year .

The most wonderful thing I remember from this experience is the realization on some students’ faces when they realized what they could become if they stayed in school and had a good education. Many of those students have big dreams and I told them that in order to achieve that having a good education is a major stepping stone to achieve their dream. It felt so nice to help kids that were in need and I will never forget how one of the the students that was only in 6th grade ran up to me and hugged me saying thank you. It was so heartwarming to see  the joy on the students’ faces when they learned that they have an opportunity to continue their education. One of the student promised that when she completes her education and gets a job, she will support in giving education to the deserving children and that was very satisfying for me to hear and motivates me to continue every year. The experience I cherish from the TPW fundraising event was again to undertake an education project where I accomplished by giving education to four deserving children.

My volunteer experience influenced me personally because I experienced the feeling that one gets when I can make an impact in someones life in such a positive way that it could change their life for their betterment. I want to become a neurosurgeon and I learned many valuable things to help me achieve that. Although there wasn’t anything connected directly to medicine in this project but giving a chance to continue their education to achieve their dreams is nothing giving another life to those young children. This is how a doctor could feel when they save a life. Stress, joy, panic, relief, and the best part was to see how you could change someones life. This made me want to become a doctor even more just so I can experience that one feeling every single day which is serving others selflessly.