Spreading Smiles

Anil Alagh

So what do I do as the GM-Shaping Lives? That’s a question very often asked of me. I pass it off with a 'oh! Just connect compassionate people to some great NGOs across India for mutual smiles and benefits' ! But, behind the scenes, Le Passage Travel Foundation aka Shaping Lives, www.shaping-lives.org, is not my professional 9 to 5 job, it is an integral part of my daily life.

While I enjoy being participative and spending time at my NGOs, I have great admiration for the international inbound traveler who decides to devote anything from half a day to longer duration volunteer days, to a social cause while on holiday. It speaks volumes of the person’s / persons’ kind heart. Being able to facilitate such like-mindedness gives me the high and in my own way I try to make their experience memorable.

It is not a walk in - walk out affair when Shaping Lives facilitates a traveler into a charity across India's tourism destinations. The Charity or NGO has been thoroughly researched. It is attempting to make a difference at the grass root level, to a visible core group: be it children, aged, destitute, animals or environment. The NGOs have principally agreed to affiliate and host our clients and follow a format of welcome, briefing, facility round and open house interaction with staff and inmates. When volunteer groups come in we take their wish list and give them options to select an NGO of their choice to fulfill their desire. However, as GM and an equal ally of my NGOs, I do give recommendations or suggestions to alter wish lists to meet my NGO’s needs. The clients always agree. They are mature enough to understand that the end beneficiary is the NGO which is in need and we as mere tools must be flexible enough to adapt and give them what they want and not what we want forced onto them.

Over the past 7 years since the Foundation was raised on 01 July, 2010, we have had many volunteer groups, quite a few of them repeats because their first experience was so memorable. From NGOs nurturing street children and children rescued from bonded labor to children suffering from cancer, orphans, the old and the destitute and animal charities, our inbound travelers and volunteers have left indelible marks at their centers and their legacy of love and compassion for the inmates is always remembered by our NGOs.

Maybe on your next trip you might like to sample the bouquet of love and compassion Shaping Lives offers. If so, drop me a mail at anil@lpti.in. Our Foundation is supported by India's No. 1 DMC, Le Passage to India. My supporting operational colleagues will help you plan a delightful holiday as well. My job will be to add 'soul' to that holiday for the time you wish to spare for it.