Sahaita is a childhood dream of mine being able to make a difference in the life of someone within this world. A dream cultivated by a childhood friend whose desire to be a great physician was crushed by family circumstances. It is a dream, which was nurtured and kept alive with encouragement from my grandparents and parents. After becoming a physician with the struggles in life and travelling different roads, I reached California and took the first step of Sahaita in 1991 when we adopted our daughter Samreen which changed our life. People always say we did a good deed but I always think we owe it to our daughter to have given us a chance to be part of a dream to help someone. We went on to adopt our son Ashvin in 1995 and these two children of ours have given us so much love and affection that there are not enough words to describe how we feel.

I have been carrying the mission of helping the needy and disabled children without even my own family knowing about it and since then I have never looked back. It has been my intention to go back to India and open a charitable

clinic. The tsunami disaster in December 2004 changed my life and I could not watch the horrible waves of death and destruction and the cries of the innocent people, especially the children with grief stricken faces looking for someone to hold their hands. It moved me beyond description. My daughter’s desire for me to do something and my children’s constant requests for us to adopt someone from these children prompted me to do something, and that something was a fund-raiser that took place in January 2005. The encouragement of my family and friends was good enough for me to go out and get more and more donations for this and anyone whom I could approach I did and asked for donations.

The month of February brought another challenge in the form of a young child in India needing renal transplant and the mother was going to donate her kidney but they needed Good Samaritan to help with funds. I decided to take this challenge and we raised enough funds from community to be able to get this child her kidney transplant and will fund part of her treatment after the transplant. Some donors asked if I had a non-profit status and if I would give a tax deductible receipt. My wife said, Harkesh , you have always wanted to go back and do charitable work, may be you can start from here and go there when needed. This impetus and ongoing desire to be able to help and the dream of my lifetime helped me in starting this non-profit organization called Sahaita Inc. At present, its main supporters are family and very close friends with common interest of helping the poor children and elderly. We hope our message of hope and help will spread and more individuals will join Sahaita’s journey to bring a smile on an innocent child or elderly face.