Inherited Humanitarianism
Club Member Afifah Yamasaki explains how growing up in a philanthropic family left its mark.
My father was a very religious guy, and charity came first for him every time. If he saw somebody on the street looking for food or something, he would just bring him home. Every day, we had somebody join us.
After he came to Japan, my father continued like this. Especially at weekends, there would be somebody coming to our home. He would be at the [Indian] embassy and see an Indian student and invite him for dinner. Every day, my mother was feeding people.
This is how my father was. One day in winter, he came back home without his hat and coat. My mother asked him where his coat was. He said, “I saw an Indian student at the embassy and he wasn’t wearing a coat, so I gave him mine.”
I always thought that when I grew up, I wanted to do the same thing. That’s why I’m so involved with charities. While I don’t bring people home, I do what I can to help needy children.
I first got involved when my son was doing his Eagle Scout project 18 years ago. He had to do a community service project and he decided to collect children’s clothes and send them to India. At the end, we shipped 120 boxes of clothes to Delhi. But I wondered what we could do with them.
A friend of mine was involved with [the charity] Mobile Creches. In India, most of the laborers come from villages. When they come to the city, they cannot leave their families behind. Families are scattered around construction sites. [Founder Meera Mahadevan] started collecting children and teaching them at one site. Now they feed the children, teach them, bathe them and take care of their health at sites across India.
My son agreed to donate the clothes, and so I took him to India for the first time when he was 14. I remember he was very sad for the first two or three days and couldn’t eat. He was upset [at the poverty]. I explained that that was why we were bringing clothes to the children.
As a family, we started donating cash to Mobile Creches. I visit each year, and it’s so good to see the children who have grown up. One boy is a famous [photographer] now. You see the smiles on their faces. That’s why I keep helping.
If you give a person an education, they will go a long way. In India, they have this thinking that why spend money on girls when they will get married and leave home? I want to empower women. I sponsor five girls, whom I want to see through high school, and I am involved in microfinance loans, with a condition that they must go to women.
I am never satisfied. I always think I can do more. It’s just a drop in the ocean, but that drop might become a puddle and that puddle might become a lake, which might flow into a river, and one day, hopefully, the river will flow into the ocean. That’s what charity is.
As told to INTOUCH’s Nick Jones.
Image: Enrique Balducci
