Sonia T. was brought into Don Bosco Valsalyabhavan in 2013, when she was a 9th grader. Having brought up by a mentally ill mother, she felt different and isolated herself from other children at the home. Due to her lack of self esteem she secluded herself. At Don Bosco Valsalya Bhavan in addition to academic learning, the children are provided various programmes such as dance, skill trainings, life skills etc. These programmes help the children to learn valuable life lessons. Sonia was initially reluctant to participate but eventually she came out of her shell. She started making friends and she realized that she was not very different from the other children. She saw that there were children who had gone through worse sufferings than her, yet they were happy. She learnt a valuable lesson that there is no point in being sad and that it was time to grow up. As she started enjoying these programmes, she saw that she was getting better at them. This developed confidence and more importantly a sense of self-worth.

Before she was brought into the home, she used to accompany her sick mother to hospitals. Here she noticed how the nurses would help her mother with everything. Sonia was now able to combine her past experiences with her new found sense of purpose. Today Sonia is a General Nursing Medicine student at Ernakulam Medical Trust Hospital. She started her journey in 2018 thanks to the donations received by Don Bosco which supports her education. Sonia wants to help people and achieve great things in life. Most importantly she wants to support and help her mother.