Hi! How are you?  My name is Amrin and I am 15. I stay at Kranti NGO which empowers girls from Mumbai’s red-light areas to become agents of social change. There are many girls at Kranti, even my three older sisters stay here. But what is special about me is that I am deaf and mute. And guess what? I won a full scholarship to go for a camp to the US where all the kids and staff will be deaf!! I am so so so excited to go there! But….I need your help to get to the US. Will you help me for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity?

You’re probably wondering why I’m at Kranti, right? It’s because my father died when I was very small, and my mother didn’t have any way to raise four girls. She worked as a bar dancer and sent my sisters to stay at NGOs, but she kept me at home. There I learned to cook and clean, but I never learned to read or write. I didn’t even learn sign language, and I could only talk with two or three people outside home. So it was my big dream for many years to go to school. 

When I came to Kranti, I got to learn many new things I love such as dancing, painting and theater. But most important, I started going to Bombay School for the Deaf and Mute. Here I learned to read and write basics, but it was my tutor, Sana, who really helped me to learn. She comes to the Kranti home almost every day and teaches me for 2-4 hours. She even teaches the Kranti girls and staff on Sundays, so everyone is learning sign language. She is even invited to this camp as my interpreter and as a volunteer. All we need is visas and flights! 

I cannot tell you how excited I am to go for this camp. I love Kranti and everyone here, but sometimes it is lonely being the only deaf person here. And going to school is hard because I am 15 but I study with much smaller kids since I can’t read and write much. So I want to go for camp and spend time learning with people who are my age, who are all deaf, and where I am not “slow.” The camp also has exciting things like whitewater rafting and leadership training...I don’t think there is any program like this for deaf kids in India, and I’m so very lucky to get this invitation and scholarship. Will you please help me to get my visa and flight??