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When Austin author Shelley Seale made her first visit to India in March 2005 as part of a volunteer group through the Miracle Foundation, she became enthralled with the children she met. Fast forward to 2009, and Seale has just released her book The Weight of Silence: Invisible Children of India, about her journey through the streets and slums of India where millions of children still live today without anyone to call family.
Inspired by an article about Caroline Boudreaux who stumbled upon an orphanage full of children in India, Seale set off on her own journey to see the conditions for herself. What she saw were children who had been orphaned by poverty. While they might have been poor in the literal sense of the word, they were not devoid of spirit or life. Seale knew she had to tell their stories.
The Weight of Silence chronicles the lives of the more than 25 million orphaned children in India. They have not been orphaned by death in their families, but by poverty. Seale’s journey has led her into the orphanages to hear the children’s stories directly. She gives them a voice in her book and makes them invisible no more.
Seale’s hope in writing this book is that readers will give the invisible children a voice by reading their stories. She hopes that people will heed the call to take action and do something, whether it is locally or internationally, about an issue that you are passionate about. Finally, Seale hopes that the children of India will inspire you, because they still have hope for a better future, even amidst great adversity.
Seale has written for numerous publications including the Austin Business Journal, the Seattle Times and our own austinwoman magazine among many others. She is currently the sustainable travel columnist at the The Examiner. Seale’s one wish is that a reason never existed for her to write this book – that there aren’t 25 million children living in orphanages or on the streets of India, but we are sure glad she did.
Check out The Weight of Silence at www.weightofsilence.wordpress.com. You can also visit the Miracle Foundation, which provides resources and empowers the orphaned children of India at: www.miraclefoundation.org.