People often come to Karuna Vihar and offer to buy us things: books for the library, a television, furniture, physiotherapy equipment . . . but while we like getting presents (who doesn’t?), we’d really rather have the money.

Gifts are lovely, but with cold, hard cash, we can pay our teachers. And that is worlds more important – because the heart and soul of our school is not the equipment or the gadgets or the building but the people who work here.

The people who work here! As the director of this school, I know how wonderful our teachers are; I know that they are committed, passionate professionals who are always ready to see the best in the children in their care and to help them achieve their highest potential.

But it is as a mother that they really move me. When I bring Moy Moy into school each morning and see her face light up and her eyes sparkle as her teacher comes to the door to greet her, I know that I am leaving her in hands no less loving than my own.

What is it worth, this assurance that our special children are being looked after with all the warmth and tenderness of parents and with professional skill thrown in as a bonus?

Only everything.

In the Karuna Vihar calendar this year we celebrate teachers. We celebrate the devotion they bring to their work and the joy with which they express it. We celebrate the security of knowing that with them, our children are in good hands, free to grow and explore and learn, free to become their best selves.

So when donors offer us a television or a new computer, we ask them gently if they would be willing to give us a teacher’s salary instead. It’s little enough we can offer them in return for what they give to us and to our children. If it were doubled, it still wouldn’t come close.

-–Jo Chopra