By Lucy-Claire Saunders 

For the last five years, Indian students living in the southern state of Andhra have been receiving an encouraging dose of HUGGS. Founded by North Shore resident, Lisa Heel, Helping Guys and Girls Study in India (HUGGS) is the ticket to an education and a step out of poverty.

Last Friday, Heel and her mother, Marilyn Gullison, who is the executive chair of HUGGS, hosted a five-year anniversary at St. Andrews United Church on Lonsdale, in North Vancouver. A group of 40 gathered in the church adorned with a rainbow of saris to listen to the stories of the 15 students HUGGS has helped put through school.

"We try to transform lives by offering the students complete and quality education," Gullison said. "This year, we have three students who are in post-secondary but we also have three who are going on to university. For them, there’s great excitement."

Heel registered HUGGS as a charitable organization after she came back from a trip to India nearly six years ago. Having never travelled to the country before, Heel wanted to see the sights and savour the flavours of her ancestors. Her family is from the small village of Sompeta on the Bay of Bengal.

On her travels, she met a young girl named Viveka who was just finishing Grade 10, where the public school system ends. Heel asked the girl what she planned on doing now that she had finished school.

The girl replied that because her family could not afford to keep sending her to school, she would probably go back her village and live with her widowed mother. Lisa asked Viveka, "But what would you like to do?"

The young girl looked up and said she had always dreamed of becoming a nurse. Lisa came back to Canada but could not shake herself of the young girl’s story and six months later HUGGS was born. Viveka is now training to be a nurse and will graduate at the end of this year.

HUGGS recruits students from government schools who tend to live in slums and on less than $30 a month. Gullison has developed several relationships with teachers at various schools in the state, who keep their eyes open for possible candidates.

"If we find that they’re really having difficulty in a particular subject, we find a tutor for them," said Gullison, "because once these kids are determined, we just want to do everything to make it happen for them."