Jaipur, India
December 13-16, 2025
On a trip to Jaipur, India we donated supplies to a government-run school in a more rural area. In this school there was a total of 60 children from K-12. While it was simply a day trip to drop off the supplies to the students, it took closer to 3 days to source and gather the supplies. After contacting officials at the school, I learned that the students are provided meals and their books, they do not get school supplies however, and must purchase these themselves. We reached out to vendors in Jaipur and managed to secure enough bookbags to have one for each student along with writing utensils that varied based on the specific grade the students were in.
Once these were purchases, and packed, they were then loaded in a car on the 16th and taken to the school. We took time to talk about what school is like in the USA and where some of the differences are, but we also took time to learn what each student wanted to be when they grow up and why. Many of the answers were doctors, policemen, army, or teachers.
We made sure to let all the students know that regardless of how hard it gets, the main thing is they keep that dream in the forefront of their mind and work towards it. We each talked about our own struggles through education, how some of the people with me that day went to school in the 80’s and it was a harder time, or how I worked while maintaining a full course load, and conducting research. I personally talked about my path down medicine, how I had gotten to that point, and what I wanted to do with it now.
We passed out supplies to each student, then passed out food and sweets to the faculty at the school as a thank you for letting us come in and share our experiences. I then took the time to run around with the kids, to answer as many of the questions as possible, and tour around the school taking time to learn what they did in a day.
To me the one thing that really stood out was how many of the girls, especially in 6th-9th grades, had the same questions, hobbies, and giggles that I have when I’m chatting with my friends or passing time in my day. Even thousands of miles apart I related to these girls, I understood them, I saw myself in them. To me this experience really brought to light, how similar we are at the end of the day. It’s something said by everyone, that “underneath our skin its all the same”, but to really see that no matter the cultural, financial, linguistic, or gender differences, we’re all truly just kids running around, speaking of our dreams, talking about makeup or what we like to eat, was heartwarming.
Society puts a large amount of emphasis on barriers, class, and especially in India, the caste system, even then the end goals are the same to live a fulfilled life. Fulfilled will mean something different to everyone but that seems to be the common denominator across any barrier.
