In the month of May amidst the scorching tropical summer, when life comes to a standstill and Mother Earth is all dry and parched, in comes a visitor to the door step of Ruchika Social Service Organisation. This visitor brought in a zephyr with her smile; no ordinary smile but a highly contagious one.

Meet Leen Ketelslegers, from Belgium. Back home, Leen led a life which would make a million girls go green with envy. A highflying career as a flight attendant with an international airline, which made her travel across the globe, great friends to hang out with and a caring family - in other words, no complaints with her life.

 

But deep within, she wanted to be at peace with herself, and looked around for answers. As they say, it’s all destined and in her quest to find peace she happened to meet a relative who also happened to be the founder of VZW. Thomas Voor India, who suggested a visit to RSSO at Bhubaneswar.

Today if Leen is asked to sum up her experience at RSSO, she says: “A better place to live in, a new society and happiness for all, seemed like words spoken only at beauty contests - words without any relevance, just empty! But here I saw these words forming into actions”.

As a volunteer for the Inclusive Education Project, interacting with children and meeting interesting people became a part of her life here. Due to a language problem and inability to directly communicate with the children, she helped coordinate the administrative work. However, her heart was set on teaching children or assisting in therapies - which she assumed she could not do because of the language problem and her lack of a medical education.

“If people make any contribution to society, it need not be a large sum of money - it could be anything in their capacity and the world would definitely be a better place”, says Leen. Yes, the Leen who had walked in to RSSO in May and the one we see now, are very different in their perspective towards life. The new Leen is so much clearer in her thoughts. The emptiness in her life has now been filled with a desire to do something constructive and make this world a better place to live in.

What RSSO has to say to Leen is...

 “They say to spread smiles and you need no language. You lent your shoulder for the children when they needed you and that was the best substitute for the language problem. We wish you all the very best for your future endeavors.”