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Sheena and I had our horoscopes matched by a friend of ours, and it was awesome talking to her about what she saw. But even more inspiring is how she deals with asking to charge people for doing horoscopes and matches. All the money she makes from doing horoscopes she donates to people or organizations that need help or support. The money she asked of us to do our horoscope match she donated to an organization called the Raina Foundation based in India. Here’s a little about what they do:

“_The foundation is involved currently in six major projects. The first one, is the Raina-Prayas project, where the foundation has joined hands with Prayas one of the largest charities in India and adopted 400 children from the slum areas of Bawana in Delhi. ‘There are about 400,000 slum dwellers in Bawana, with virtually no means of education, livelihood or medical facilities. In spite of being razed to the ground, we have an 11 room school with all the facilities plus we provide food, clothing, picnics, toys, medical aid etc to these kids. Every Saturday there is play or some performance by the kids and awards are given, These plays, and other acts by them go on to become a part of their annual day. Every class is allowed one hour of TV as part of having fun, and watch everything from cartoons to the Discovery Channel etc,’ says Raina and adds, ‘Rooms to Read, is providing books for the kids and we are very happy with the way things are going there.’

The second initiative the Foundation has undertaken is empowering women. A self help group of 600 slum dwelling women, are being helped with education, self-empowerment and all kinds of support to fight against any abuse. If a family or husband abuses a woman the other women show up in groups to confront them. They also have a kitty or rupees 100 each month and when someone needs money she is provided the money from the kitty and pays it back later. The women preside over all transactions themselves. ‘A couple of weeks ago,’ says Robin, ‘we also trained them in martial arts through policewomen from Delhi Police who came over and showed them how to protect themselves from sexual and any other kind of harassment which is very prevalent in slums.’_” [ full article ]

I find it an inspiring demonstration of generosity when someone takes ALL the money they make for using a talent or skill they have and donate it to causes like this. If there were more people in the world like that, the world be a much, much better place.