Sarika is from a large family originally from Bihar, one of the poorest states in India. Looking to create a secure future for their family, Sarika’s parents migrated to Nasik in search of better paid employment. There her parents and elder siblings found work at a construction site where, as is common practice, huge LPG and hydrogen cylinders for the welding and fabrication of metals were kept. One fateful day, a huge cylinder blast tore the site apart, tragically killing many workers on the spot, including all of Sarika’s family. She was also on site that day, but just far away from the blast to survive. She was however badly burnt and was admitted to Nasik Burn Centre, a hospital owned by plastic surgeon, Dr Rahul Shinde. Sarika needed intensive care and treatment which kept her in hospital for months where many of her distant relatives came to visit but none was financially stable enough to take her home with them. When our founder, Girish Kulkarni, heard her story and how many NGOs and orphanages had refused her admission under the pretext of legalities and her serious medical condition, he went to Nasik to visit Sarika himself. From that point on she became a member of our Snehalaya family with Girish starting a successful search mission to find her relatives and bring them and Sarika to Snehalaya for counselling, after which her family agreed to leave her in our care. Living in our adoption center, closer to the hospital where Dr Ajit Kale, a renowned plastic surgeon, could perform the many corrective surgery operations she required free of cost, Sarika also simultaneously attended classes at our English medium school catching up with her missing studies. She made herself useful helping with the babies and her infectious smile welcomed many visitors to our center, as well as attracting the attention of a single scientific consultant for a law firm from the USA who seeing her on our German website decided to adopt the eight-year-old. Sarika will soon depart for her new life in the States where her new family are learning Hindi to help her feel at home. We will definitely miss her smiling face but are happy that at last Sarika will have a home where she will not only be loved but will also have the financial support her family so badly wanted for her when they made that fateful choice to leave their own home in Bihar. Help us to find give more girls like Sarika a home and future, give now.