Acts of Love
In Gujarat, Munira Nagji of Calgary, Canada, has set up
a children’s home where she tirelessly works to break the cycle
of intergenerational poverty for disadvantaged youth in India.
One evening in early December, I told my husband how much I missed having children in my life and envisioned myself working with them in the future. Twelve hours later, I opened my mail and found a note from Munira Nagji, who runs a children’s home in India, asking for an extra set of hands to help her raise some kids.
My heart leapt out of my chest as if the angels had heard my prayer and delivered it directly to God’s desk. Within a couple of days, we had a phone call to discuss the opportunity, and I received the blessing of my husband to go to India alone ahead of our scheduled plans. Without even a plane ticket booked, I marched straight into my manager’s office the next day and resigned. A month later, I would join Munira in Gujarat to volunteer with Acts of Love, serving some of India’s most disadvantaged youth.
A selfie wearing a gown, mask, and shield provided by Air India.
The grandmother from my dream, at her home in Jivapur.
Getting to India to be a part of this experience was no easy feat. Four flights, 40+ hours with a mask on end to end, two Covid tests, a stack of official forms as thick as a slice of bread in hand, drastic mid-air changes for passengers arriving in India from the UK, and the most hilarious mandatory PPE ever, made this journey the longest slog and most extraordinary adventure in awhile. Not to mention the emotional process of leaving my family behind in these very uncertain times.
But on December 23rd, just two weeks before I was due to leave, I awoke from a prophetic dream that would act as the anchor to my faith in the divine orchestration of this mission.
I was sitting on the floor in a large waiting hall full of Indians. I was the only white face in the room but felt a sense of belonging because everyone seemed to know me. A wrinkly old sari-clad grandma came sailing over the crowd from one of the back rows until she stood above me. She placed her hands on my forehead to give me her blessing, and I put my palms together in prayer to show her respect before I awoke.
A few weeks later, on the afternoon that the Acts of Love team travelled to Jivapur to pick up the children coming to live with us, I stood on the threshold of an old woman’s home down a dusty rural lane. With her eyes shimmering blue from cataracts and time folding her skin with a thousand stories, I felt she was the woman from the dream I had back in Canada. As we departed her home, I turned to look back at her, and she raised her palms in the air in a gesture that signified ‘go safely.’ I pressed my palms together in namaste to acknowledge her blessing.
And, so, our journey began.
Sheets of corrugated tin are roughly strewn together to act as the walls of this home.
The interior of the home of a family of six. All four children were adopted by Sahara Home.
The mother of four children coming to Sahara Home prepares to say goodbye in Jivapur.
In India, if one is born in a tent, one will likely die in a tent.
Munira Nagji set up the charity Acts of Love to help break the cycle of intergenerational poverty for those clinging to society’s margins. From the time she was 16 years old, she had a dream to run an orphanage. After raising her own family in Canada, teaching Afghan refugees in her living room, and homeschooling her son, she finally decided it was time to make that dream come true.
Munira began by setting up Montessori classrooms in rural orphanages across southern India. But after meeting several homeless and “Untouchable” (low-caste) families living in tents on the outskirts of her ancestral village in Gujarat, her journey took a turn. That is when she decided to start her first children’s home, Ashiyana—meaning “nest.”
Munira Nagji (left) stands in the entrance of her first children’s home, Ashiyana, in Jivapur, Gujarat.
Together with nine homeless children from the surrounding tent camps, she rented a small house with no running water or domestic help. The work of educating, caring for, and sheltering some of the most stigmatized people in the country was not without its hardships. At first, locals didn’t take well to the children’s presence in their village. She spent her first six months crying and wondering if she’d be able to do it. But with time and the kids’ transformation, she finally received respect from locals and donations from kind souls back home.
Acts of Love supported Roshanbai with groceries and her electricity bill in Jivapur.
Raju Bhai shows off his old water hand-pump. He provided water to Ashiyana several times.
The Acts of Love crew with our special guest and mentor, Deepak Gadhia aka “Uncle D”.
A decade after her mission began, Munira moved to Baroda and opened Sahara Home, where she received me in early January. Together, we welcomed five new children from Jivapur into the home with more on the way. After her success with Ashiyana, evident in the dramatic transformation of the kids who are all now in a hostel in Baroda, parents are now eager for their children to be taken in by Acts of Love. At Sahara Home, the children will fill their educational gaps with mathematics, English, and daily routines, before eventually joining public school. They will live in the home until they are adults and visit their families a couple of times a year with phone calls on Sunday. Although it is a challenging transition for everyone involved, the experience of living at Sahara Home is a transformational one.
Not only does it provide each child with an unparalleled education in a warm and colourful home, it truly frees them from an almost unbreakable hand-to-mouth existence.
Learning double-digit numbers in English.
The kids listen attentively on their first morning at Sahara Home.
The kids love drawing and I think she got my hair just right ;)
The children are all tucked in on their first night at Sahara Home.
Being a part of the mission of Acts of Love is a truly inspiring experience. Coming from the developed world, it is easy to forget how privileged we are until we meet people that reflect our blessings to us. I wish the world was more equitable and just and children didn’t have to be separated from their families just to have a chance at the kind of life many of us take for granted.
Acts of Love may be a small organization, but it is playing a big part in changing the lives of so many people, myself included. I am so grateful to be a small part of its work in making this world a better place.
Acts of Love is modelling to us all how when we let love lead the way, hearts of compassion open doors of opportunity for those who need it most.
Please visit www.theseactsoflove.com to learn more and to make a donation to Munira’s work in India.
