India Trip | Ramana’s Garden in Rishikesh | Old Delhi

colors, smells, chaos. everyone warned me to stay away from Old Delhi hat it was hard to breathe because of the pollution and dangerous. especially traveling as a solo female. but I found the opposite, I saw a vibrant population of almost 19 million, somehow coexisting in a wild city. if you’re a solo traveler, I highly recommend the Madpackers Hostel — nestled away in a quiet part of the city, but close to the metro station. I met some incredible people from every corner of the world, all on their own journey, coming or going or somewhere in between.

I also loved spending the day at Salaam Baalak Trust, an NGO working with former street kids, providing them with shelter, food and love. with full care residential centers, homeless shelters, medical and mental health care, using performance arts as a therapeutics process, contact points in the railway centers (identifying vulnerable children when they first arrive) and more —  Salaam Baalak has a lot of incredible ways they are serving the city.

 

Ramana’s Garden

I spent the second half of my trip giving my heart and volunteering my photography to Ramana’s Garden.

Ramana’s Garden is home to over 60 at risk children and a free English medium school for over 160 students from Ramana’s Garden and local underprivileged families. The school provides classes from kindergarten to eighth grade.

You don’t have to be an orphan to live in Ramana’s Garden. You have to be at risk. Every child that comes through Ramana’s gate is here because they would be at risk of either being murdered, forced into prostitution, child labour, begging, starvation or total neglect if they weren’t here. For me a child who has seen their drunken abusive father or mother-in-law pour kerosene over their mother and burn her, is at risk in that house. A child who suffers severe malnutrition because their abusive father drinks all the food money leaving the family to starve is at risk.