During our last week in India, we were invited by Bachpan Bachao Andolan to host one last Hearts of the World program in India with children rescued from bonded child laborer at Mukti Ashram in Delhi.

Many of the kids at the ashram had scars all over their hands from cutting and welding steel wire. Most of the kids I spoke with were very recently rescued from a bindi factory. They were thirsty to learn and very interested in the program, listening earnestly as we explained the HotW project.

Bachpan Bachao Andolan, founded by Nobel Prize laureate Kailash Satyarti has rescued over 80,000 children in India. Mukti Ashram is essentially a holding place, a “sanctuary” for kids rescued from factories etc. before they are returned to their parents or placed in orphanages.

We worked with seventy kids who ranged in age from 11-17. After asking them to write their names on their program sheets I was immediately reminded of the seriousness of their situation. They all sat silent, frozen… no one knew how to write their own name. 

The concept of a dream for life was unheard of to these kids. More so than any I have ever met. It was a completely foreign concept, no one had ever told them they could have a dream. It was very difficult, nearly impossible for them to imagine doing something other than factory work. Some of them had labored in these factories since they were six years old. It’s all they knew. They expected to work like this for their entire lives.

One ten year old boy who was rescued from sixteen hour workdays in a bindi factory (making roughly $1/day) painted little flowers all around his heart. When asked what they were, he said they were bindis. “How about what is inside your heart?” I asked. 

He said, “I don’t know yet what is in my heart, but there are no bindis there.”

I cannot show the faces or share the names of of these kids as they need to be protected. But I will tell you that in each of their portraits that we took, there is a hardness, their brows are furrowed, not one of them smiled. They don’t have the eyes of children, but intense eyes like adults who’ve seen years of difficulty and struggle. It was a very emotional day for me. I want to adopt all these kids and give them a fighting chance at life, I want to spend more time with them, but we are leaving tomorrow. They need so much more help to start thinking outside the factory box.

I hope the seeds planted during our program will grow in these kids and that they will dare to dream. It’s difficult days like these that I am reminded of the importance of my own dream to build a Hearts of the World center, a place kids can come for an extended series of workshops to explore their potential and aspirations for life in a safe, encouraging environment… a dream to make possible more dreams~ a “dream factory” run by passionate teachers, where no one labors. 

We are heading back to NYC tonight~ Soon we will share the artwork and dreams of the Hearts of India at a public exhibition in Manhattan.

I will never forget these kids.