One! International was founded by Tania Spilchen who first came to Mumbai from Edmonton, Canada to work at an internet agency on an exchange program. During this time she met and bonded with children living in the streets whom she claims stole her heart. The story of One! International’s inception is best told by Tania herself:
“The origins of One! international come from three little kids and a slum in Khar Danda, Mumbai. I had first contact with the kids by chance. Their older brother wanted me to buy milk powder, and I would not until I saw the ‘baby brother’ that he proclaimed really needed it. So he took me to his family and that day, one of his younger brother’s had been run over by a Goods Carrying Truck and was in the hospital awaiting treatment. Their mother had died four years earlier; their father was an alcoholic and had disappeared and was nowhere to be found.
I never did buy milk powder. There was no need for that; but I bought them chicken biryani and left with tears in my eyes. How could this happen, how could this family of four be left to face the world alone at 15, 10, 7, and 5?
“I went back to the hospital the next day. Who knows why? But, it was the best decision that I have ever made and has probably turned out to have completely changed my life. I went to the hospital just to drop off some pens and paper and food. I ended up returning later on that same day and spent three hours visiting and laughing and drawing and playing and smiling and enjoying the smiles that were lighting up their faces! So I continued to see the kids as much as I could – before work for an hour, after work for a couple hours and of course even more on weekends. They needed food and clothes and shoes and all those other material things; but what they needed most was an education and even more than that, was just a little attention and a little love.
Finally after a couple months of fighting with the doctors to get what was needed for Santosh, the boy with the broken leg, the kids got to return ‘home’. I was then shocked even more by the reality of their life – no parents and no real home. The worst part was that they weren’t alone. There were at least twenty other families on the same road that the kids were ‘living on’, and at least 50 more kids who were alone. I tried to ‘understand’ and ‘learn’ as much as I possibly could about their hardships. I learned what they really needed to make life at least a little bit easier, and to survive until tomorrow.
One day, I saw a baby who was eight pounds and one and a half years old. Basic care would cost next to nothing: he didn’t have it. This was the birth of One!; because it would be so easy for me to provide for at least ‘one‘ of these children in at least one of these slums. Three days later that baby died.”
Shortly after, Tania’s visa expired, forcing her to return to Canada where she finished her computing science degree and worked a tutor and waitress. Upon returning, Tania felt deeply unsatisfied; “I felt that my heart would be put to better use somewhere else like here in India and that I needed to come back and start a school and start teaching kids.”
In 2001 Tania returned to Mumbai where she built the beginnings of what would become One! International. “We started without a school, and on the street with 8 kids the first day and brought out a mat and a backpack of books…then eight kids became fifteen and fifteen became thirty” The class’ rapid growth required a transition which took Tania and the still growing student body, to a public school classroom and eventually a two story building where class is still in session.
Currently One! International consists of over 400 students in three school areas. “These children have given me so much…they are my life and I will forever be involved with their lives.”
– Tania Spilchen, Founder