In the beginning of May, Vienna International School celebrated the MAHER Action Week. For fifteen years, Vienna International School has been supporting MAHER (“Mother’s Home in Marathi, India), an NGO that has helped more than 1700 women and 1600 children in India, while developing a model of compassion and empowerment to help uplift impoverished villages.
It was great seeing our students animated by this cause and determined to bring their personal contribution to try to help their peers from India. We also had the opportunity to meet Sister Lucy and our dear friends from the Vadhu campus online. Sister Lucy thanked the VIS students for their support, as well as for organising different workshops this week, personal initiatives like poetry, mindfulness, painting, yoga or baking - designed to raise money for Maher. Some students chose to take personal initiatives like running, cycling and selling their art to help MAHER. In trying to help raise awareness, the students in Grade 12 put together a lovely call-to-action video encouraging everyone to help Maher from home “because we have a home”. Our teaching community offered additional classes for students, parents and staff members.
Finally, we are very happy to announce that the many contributions from the VIS community are now summed up to 6.965 Euro, money that will go to provide essentials like food and hygiene products to help the MAHER community go through this difficult time, due by the spread of COVID-19 in India. This was only possible due to the efforts of our 1400 students, their teachers and parents who showed great interest, empathy and generosity for our friends in India.
While we received a Thank you Video from MAHER to everyone, we cannot help but notice how much we have also received, when looking back at our students working out, running, cycling, cooking, drawing, challenging themselves to help others.