Pingry School junior leads fundraising organization to help educate children worldwide

Malvi Hemani, a junior at The Pingry School in Bernards Township, started her own youth-run E.Y.E. (Empowering Youth Education) for the Future in order to help provide educations for other youth around the world. In 2007, Malvi was a 14-year-old teenager from Watchung who was galvanized to start the nonprofit organization during a family trip to India. "Surrounded by begging children, noticing the way they walked and the way they dressed, I was moved by the difference between their lives and my own. Each child was limping with eyes dulled from sleep deprivation and lack of nutrition. Some of the children wore loincloths, others wore barely any clothing," she recalled two years later.

Desperate children were forced to beg in every way in order to survive, she said. "Other children walked around winking to men, usually a couple decades older than them. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw children selling themselves in order to eat that night."

Rather than just offering sympathy, Malvi said she did research and learned that more than 121 million children globally do not attend school because most of their families cannot afford for them to do so. "Education, in my opinion, is critically important for children to discover themselves and acquire strength. I, therefore, am trying to solve the problem for millions of poor children globally by providing them with the free opportunity of attending school and creating hope for them to look forward to a new day – a day free of hunger, suffering, abuse and poverty."

"The mission of my charitable endeavor is to help all children receive an education. E.Y.E. for the Future focuses on empowering education for underprivileged children in India and other countries with great deprivation," she said. The organization, which recently achieved nonprofit status and started its own Web site, www.leap-programs.com, has been working with 12 major charitable organizations around the world, she said.

So far, E.Y.E. for the Future has raised more than $17,000 and has a goal of donating more than $20,000 by May 2011, Malvi said. Those donations have helped change the lives of more than 7,000 childrens' lives around the world, she estimated.

Malvi's efforts have inspired others, and she said she is now working with more than 50 active volunteers worldwide, including many at schools in New Jersey. Much of the money she raised came from low-key activities such as bake sales at her school. But she said the teen volunteers are planning a huge walk-a-thon as well as smaller events in the upcoming year to raise more funds. She is also hoping to establish many more "Giving Circles" in the coming year.

Malvi said she was named last August's activist of the month by the magazine Teen Voices. "We are passionate to continue to change the futures of children and we hope to inspire hundreds of teens around the world join our venture," she said.
_ Linda Sadlouskos