Help My Friend Sajid Drive Towards a Bright Future

Greer, Amy, Sajid and Julie on the bustling streets of Udaipur

As many of you know, I recently travelled to India with 2 close friends. It was an amazing experience, and while there were many standout moments, perhaps the highlight of the trip was meeting an auto-rickshaw driver named Sajid Hussain and getting to know him and his lovely family over the week we spent in Udaipur. Since our return, we have kept in close contact with all of them, texting and talking daily about just about anything, trading pictures of our children and our pets,  even creating a website  for Sajid's business (go follow his IG  right now!) and helping his son apply to college!

Sajid serving an amazing homemade lunch for us at his home

Amy and Sajid chatting on the balcony


We traveled to Udaipur in January. Not too cold, not too hot and not a cloud in the sky. Tourists, Indian and foreign alike, were everywhere; an easy time for an auto driver to make decent money. Today, however, it is 100 degrees. In just a few weeks, the temperature will average around 110 degrees and hover there until the monsoons finally break the heat and flood the streets in late summer. What few tourists might tolerate the inhospitable climate have been scared off by recent political turmoil. In short, there is no easy living to be made right now for Sajid. Meanwhile, he must support his wife and family.

The good times! When big movies come to shoot in Udaipur, business booms. Sajid with Penelope Wilton, during the filming of The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.


To add insult to injury, his rickshaw, which was 17 years old and running on fumes, has finally driven its last trip. His only asset for a livelihood has died. What is already a hard life for Sajid, and so many good people in his position, just got impossible. There is no rainy day fund, no safety net. Without the tool for his trade, and with no other means to earn an income, Sajid has been forced to find ways to save money. The first sacrifice would be to move his family of four from their comfortable 2-bedroom flat to a much smaller home in a less safe neighborhood. Not a good option, but perhaps a necessary one.

Sajid and his wife, Shabnam in their home.

Sajid's daughter, Shifa (21), in front of a case of awards and treasures in the room she shares with her brother Sammer (17).


The next cut, of course, would be his kids’ tuition. You see, in India if you can’t pay for schooling, you basically don’t get an education. And without an education, you end up no better and perhaps worse off than the generation previous. It is such a familiar trope in India, young children leaving school in order to help their families earn money, these cycles of impoverishment churning over and over again. This was Sajid’s plight. Proudly, Sajid was the first in his family to attend college. His parents tirelessly made and sold paper bags to pay his tuition. But midway through his first year, because of his family’s financial situation, he was forced to quit school and his dreams and began working in a screen printing shop. Later, he would drive trucks for an agency. Ultimately, he would scrap enough together to buy an old rickshaw and be a free, hardworking agent. All Sajid wants is to break free of this cycle, to provide his children with more opportune lives than his own.

Sammer looking towards his bright future!

Shifa (21) and Sammer (17) are incredibly bright, compassionate kids. Shifa currently attends a local university in pursuit of a business degree. To help support her family, she also works 9 hours a day, 6 days a week at an insurance agency. Balancing it all is hard. Sammer is in his 11th year in high school. He wants nothing more than to come to the United States for college. He loves music, comics, action movies and all of the typical teenage things. He has a heart of gold, and dreams of founding NGOs that will serve poor children back in India and around the world someday. We have connected him with an incredible organization called Dexterity Global  that is helping him realize his ambitions, and we hope he will be here in the US soon.

An excerpt from Sammer's application essay for consideration to Dexterity Global in which he proposes to be a "Real-Life Superhero"


But all of this hangs in the balance. Imagine if what stood between your children and their promising futures was merely a bum engine or a broken axle.


Until this week, even as business deteriorated, Sajid had never asked for financial help and steadfastly refused our frequent offers. When his rickshaw broke down, without any options and against all of his principles, he came to us reluctantly. The rickshaw is broken beyond repair. Replacing it with a used one will cost about ₹100k or roughly $1500. For reference, so that you might understand how outside of the range of affordability this is, Sajid pays ₹6000 monthly for rent, equivalent to $87.


As I sit and write this, I know that you might be asking: 'Is this just another scam? Why help this person, this stranger, when so many others also suffer?' All I can say is that this is one honest, hardworking family that I have had the privilege to meet, that I have come to love and that I can help. But I personally only have the financial means to help them so much. That is why I’m asking you, friends and family, if you could spare even the smallest amount of money -- $5, $20, $50 -- knowing that it will go a very long way to help one man to provide for his family and secure bright, better futures for his children. I thank you so much for listening, and Sajid and his family thank you more than you can know.