Madison WesselsGratitude: The quality of being thankful and the readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness. Perspective: there are more than two billion children in the world, I am one. I live in America, the tenth wealthiest country in the world (World Economic Outlook Database). It is six in the morning and I am rudely awakened by the piercing sound of my alarm clock. I slowly crawl out of bed, and trudge to the bathroom. I turn on the shower faucet and wait mere seconds for the water to warm.  Four hundred million children lack access to safe water. I scream out as the water turns cooler mid way through my shower because someone in my family is taking a shower in the other bathroom. One and a half million children will die this year due to inadequate sanitation. I get out of the shower, get ready, and walk downstairs. My mood worsens as I make myself some cereal, because my mom forgot to buy Poptarts at the grocery store. One hundred forty eight million children under the age of five alone are considered under weight and malnourished. I sit down to eat my breakfast, as I turn on the TV. One and a half billion people, a quarter of humanity, lack electricity. The station that flashes on the screen is the ¬¬¬¬¬news. The reporter is discussing rising gas prices. He does not mention the twenty one thousand children that will die around the world today due to poverty, hunger, and easily prevented diseases and illnesses. Pictures will not flash on the screen of the four million parents who just lost their newborn within the first month of his/her life. There will be no broadcast covering the “War on Poverty” president Lyndon B. Johnson launched fifty years ago. The newscast will not discuss the validity of Ronald Reagan’s statement, “some years ago, the federal government declared War on Poverty, and poverty won.” (Shesol). The reporter on the screen quickly changes the topic to a local crime. A seven-year-old girl has been kidnapped from her home. I cringe at the thought. There will be no mention of the two hundred thousand Nepalese women and children being trafficked into the sex and construction industries. Not a second will be spent discussing the hundred thousands of child soldiers (Williams). There is a recognizable commercial break and the familiar background music begins to play. It is the heart wrenching ASPCA commercial. A celebrity will speak out on cruelty against animals, pleading for donations. I turn off the TV because I hate to see some of the conditions the animals are found in. There will be no plead of donations for the one billion children who are deprived one or more of the essentials for survival and development. No tragic music will play in the background as more than ninety-two million children die this decade.

“The continuation of this suffering and loss of life contravenes the natural human instinct to help in times of disaster. Imagine the horror of the world if a major earthquake were to occur and people stood by and watched without assisting the survivors! Yet every day, the equivalent of a major earthquake killing over 30,000 young children occurs to a disturbingly muted response. They die quietly in some of the poorest villages on earth, far removed from the scrutiny and the conscience of the world. Being meek and weak in life makes these dying multitudes even more invisible in death.” — A spotty scorecard, UNICEF, Progress of Nations 2000 (Shah, Today, around 21,000 children died around the world).

I head upstairs to brush my teeth, and then walk downstairs to get money for pizza after school from my mom. She hands me a ten-dollar bill and I complain that Alexander Hamilton’s face on the green piece of paper is not a sufficient amount for my snack. At least eighty percent of humanity lives on less than ten dollars a day (Shah, Poverty Facts and Stats). I put in my headphones as I walk out the door. The familiar Jack Johnson song comes on, “Where’d all the good people go? I’ve been changing channels I don’t see them on the TV Shows.” The world is full of good people with good intentions that have forgotten how to be gracious. I have grown up with certain privileges other people have only dreamed of.
Today’s society has grown oblivious. Schools teach that racism is the oppression of people distinguished by their color. However, the majority of people believe slavery is a thing of the past. Poverty is pushed out of sight and out of mind. The textbooks use the disadvantages people living in third world countries face as a history lesson. Class time will never be spent discussing white privilege, or how being born into a white first world family puts a person at an unprecedented advantage. I have grown up beside a generation that has a full arsenal of unearned assets, unearned privileges, and handouts that are expected and viewed as normal: excellent education, protection from policemen, firefighters, running water, reliable electricity, and access to hospital facilities. The children in my community will never worry about the cleanliness of the water they are drinking, let alone thirst. There will be no complaints about not being able to attend school because of combat.  Parents will not go years, even lifetimes, without hearing from their children, because they were  taken to “safety” only to be trafficked into slavery. Work will consist of household chores, and taking a few shifts at a local grocery store not sixteen hours of labor with little to no breaks (Bhandari). A first world child will never experience what a child from Nepal will face everyday.

Conor Grennan planned a yearlong trip around the world just before his thirtieth birthday in 2004. His trip started with a three-week stint volunteering at an orphanage in war-torn Nepal (Grennan, Conor Grennan). Neighboring India and China, Nepal is one of the world’s poorest countries (Where is Nepal). This country continues to struggle from the catastrophic “effects of the decade-long civil war launched by the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) in 1996”.

“The conflict claimed the lives of 17,000 people, displaced an estimated 100,000 more, and ultimately brought about the abolition of a 240-year-old monarchy. The Comprehensive Peace Agreement of 2006 was designed to create a permanent peace, but, whilst progress has been made, challenges remain; politicians are yet to agree on a new constitution and the country remains plagued by political instability.” (volunteer researchers).

Conor arrived in Kathmandu, the largest city in the country, sponsored by a nonprofit organization known as CERV Nepal. In the southern border of the Kathmandu Valley sits the Little Princes Orphanage, which would change his life forever. “This world was already completely different from anything I had ever experienced – and this was just day one.” (Grennan, Little Princes: one man's promise to bring home the lost children of Nepal 13). This young privileged American would soon learn the story of these “orphans”, and the importance of gratitude.
In the beginning, Little Princes Orphanage consisted of eighteen children in total, sixteen boys and two girls. The trip started out as a justification for the yearlong journey around the world this young man would soon embark on. His expectations were to finish his initial three weeks assisting these children, and then continue his adventure elsewhere. Using this service as rationale for why he was dropping his life and spending his whole life savings, Conor began his trip believing he would change these children’s lives. What he found, however, was not only a new version of him, but also the realization that the children had changed him in ways no one else could. He was impacted, and moved so deeply that he went on to write a novel about his experiences, urging others to take action and open their eyes to a different reality then is often skipped over in todays media. What was supposed to just be a one-time three-week trip to Nepal changed into re-occurring visits and eventually the beginning of his nonprofit organization Next Generation Nepal, NGN.

There is something different, unique, and all together satisfying that comes with giving back. Being successful financially is something everyone strives for, but success should be followed by a great responsibility to provide for others. The Nepalese children impacted Conor Grennan’s life in unimaginable ways. However, giving back doesn’t have to be getting on a flight to a third world country to volunteer for months at a time. Helping others does not have to come in the form of a monetary contribution either. Showing gratitude and appreciation for ones community through small acts of kindness such as picking up trash or tutoring makes a difference. The most important thing is to not avoid the problems that are occurring in other less fortunate nations, and to always be appreciative of what you have been given.  

One of the most impactful parts of Conor’s trip was the children’s tenacity and perseverance, “They are very resourceful these children. You will find they do very much with very little.” (Grennan, Little Princes: one man's promise to bring home the lost children of Nepal 25). Many children in Nepal were seen as cheap labor. “Then, for the first time, I learned the story of how the children at Little Princes had arrived in the small village of Godawari.” These children originally came from Humla, a district in the far north west corner of Nepal, on the border of Tibet – the most remote country – completely mountainous with no roads, and little, if any, electricity or phone service. At a time of great conflict, due to the civil war, families were desperate to keep their children save. Powerful men with many connections would trick parents into paying them to take their child away: promising an education, meals, and a better life. The families, scared their child would be drafted into the war, agreed, truly believing their child would be taken to safety. One infamous man in particular named Golkka would fill whole houses with children, kidnapping hundreds of children at a time. The children were forced to walk for days to Kathmandu, and then were offered up as slaves, sold to other families as servants, or left to beg on the streets for food. Despite being traumatized at a young age, these children never gave up.

“We marveled at the images on T, at the faces of these peaceful, wonderful, loving people, suddenly crazed with passion, with determination, with revolution, with the spirit that drives men and women to stand on front lines and absorb bullets and batterings to win freedom for those who stand behind them.” (Grennan, Little Princes: one man's promise to bring home the lost children of Nepal).

Conor, upon hearing of these atrocities, vowed to search and unite these lost children with their families. Next Generation Nepal has reconnected over three hundred families with their children (Grennan, Conor Grennan). ‘”There are many children like you in Nepal. The only difference between you and them is that they still think they are alone in the world.’”
The phrase “bloom where you are planted” is a common saying by my mother. Choosing what type of life you are born into is impossible. There is most likely a sixteen-year-old in Nepal just like me, with similar attributes and talents, but to say we will live even close to similar lives would be a lie. I was born into a privileged white family, with a stable income living in a safe community. In my lifetime I will most likely never experience raw poverty, or even anything close to it. Gratuity is hard to express when I have never experienced the other side of things. I have yet to experience true hunger, or real thirst, and I have been provided an excellent education all my life. Poverty from a financial standpoint is one thing, but the lack of appreciation for even the little things is true impoverishment.
“We lay there, crushed by the children’s body mass in a way that felt so normal in Nepal; and I had the good sense to take note that, in that exact moment, with no money, no clean clothes, no electricity, no good food – just Liz and twenty-six children – I was as happy as I had every been in my life.” (Grennan, Little Princes: one man's promise to bring home the lost children of Nepal 244)

Giving back is not all about donations or dollar bills. It is about acknowledging the existence of a problem that needs to be addressed, and acting on a plan to solve it. It is about being thankful for what you have, grateful for the problems you are not burdened down by, and being appreciative of the people that live each day without necessities we take for granted. Being born with certain privileges does not justify obliviousness from those who barely have life’s essentials. Accepting your current situation is not refusing the help from someone else. Gratitude: The quality of being thankful and the readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness.

Works Cited
Bhandari, Bibek. No Life for a Child: The Grem Realit of Nepal's Child Laborers . 15 August 2013. 6 January 2015 .
Grennan, Conor. Conor Grennan. 2012. 6 January 2015 .
—. Little Princes: one man's promise to bring home the lost children of Nepal. New York: William Morrow & Co, 2010.
Shah, Anup. Poverty Facts and Stats. 7 January 2013. 6 January 2015 .
—. Today, around 21,000 children died around the world. 24 September 2011. 6 January 2015 .
Shesol, Jeff. The "P" Word: Why Presidents Stopped Talking about Poverty. 9 January 2014. 6 January 2015 .
volunteer researchers. Nepal: Conflict Profile. July 2013. 6 January 2015 .
Where is Nepal. 14 February 2013. 6 January 2015 .
Williams, Rachel. The Guardian. 8 May 2013. 6 January 2015 .
World Economic Outlook Database. October 2014. 6 January 2015