Sounds of Silence Foundation – a group empowering the hearing-impaired individuals to overcome the barriers of communication that they face – the intention to give back to society led to the inception of the project. The ideology of giving back to society struck the minds of the differently-abled individuals, which turned them to become Santas. They made millions smile with the help of volunteers and celebrated Christmas with the orphanages and street kids. They sang Christmas Carols, Played games, made greetings, and became Santa for those who need to love the most. The 100 Santa Project was a movement that started with the simple intention of bringing joy and spreading happiness amongst the street kids to whom this could be their first experience of meeting Santa.
Sumit Singh Gandhi (Rahul) founder of Sounds of Silence(SOS) Foundation said, “The Joy of giving has no regional, cultural barriers having Sikh, Muslim, Hindu, Christian volunteers from all age groups to all geographies made me believe that this is a world full of humans, and it can be a world full of humanity by mutual respect, brotherhood, and love.” He further added, “The children made our belief in this initiative stronger. The gratitude they showed us has now been engraved in our hearts forever.”
The best part of the initiative is that people from various backgrounds joined and became Santa for a day. The participants were college students, graduates, working professionals, elderly people. Together they made a December to Remember. Aashi Thakkar, the Project Lead coordinated with teams, sponsors and helped every region in bringing in gifts, packing them up, and identifying the best places to go visit. And other team members Dhwani, Vipul, and Janvi gave their contribution.
About SOS:
Sounds of Silence (SOS) is India’s first technology-based NGO, empowering hearing impaired individuals to overcome the barriers to communication that they face, and providing them a new way to interact with the world. It started with a simple idea of giving old mobile phones with QWERTY keypads to aid hearing and speech impaired children to communicate. With the help of technology, we help the children of rural and urban India to overcome the hurdles of impairment. From that simple idea, we have successfully bridged the gap of communication of 500 children in the Indian cities of Mumbai, Punjab, New Delhi, and Pune.
