Adoptive mom Kari Grossman and her daughter, Shanti, recently traveled on Holt's inaugural heritage tour of India. Here, Kari shares about their visit with schoolgirls in the educational sponsorship program that they help to support through one of Holt's long-time partners in India, Vathsalya Charitable Trust (VCT). This story originally appeared on Kari's blog, "Be the Change Network."

In preparation for this trip, Shanti had been talking about how to help other kids in India. We looked at different programs for the underprivileged and settled on the idea of supporting education, especially for girls. In many poor Indian families, girls’ education is still discriminated against.  As it happens, the orphanage that cared for Shanti in her first two years, Vathsalya Charitable Trust (VCT), now has an educational sponsorship program that helps girls from low-income families who are vulnerable to dropping out to stay in school through high school graduation.

Shanti turned 10 in April.  For her birthday party, she invited her entire 4th grade class to a performance of her Bharatnatyum dance troupe, having worked for months on a dance called Shabdum — a new and complicated number that tells the story of a mischievous little Krishna stealing butter from his mother.  She asked everyone to give money instead of presents and with over 70 people in attendance, she raised over $1,000. Each girl's educational sponsorship costs about 6,000 rupees or about $100 per year.