We recently connected with Rhea Manjrekar and have shared our conversation below.

Rhea, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

When I started Children’s Hope India 3 at the age of 14, I had no idea what to expect. All I knew is that I wanted to help kids my age who grew up less privileged than I did. With a mother who worked in Social Services, I had experience dealing with the homeless population in Long Island, New York where I grew up. With 120,000 homeless youth in the state of New York, and the highest wealth disparity in the country, I knew I had to take action to close the gap. Our motto is “Children Helping Children,” and the goal is to empower the lives of underserved youth internationally, as well as instill volunteerism in teenagers at a young age. Our service efforts offer opportunities for teenagers to learn leadership, networking, fundraising, and public speaking skills, all while focusing our efforts in impactful projects that help homeless youth internationally.
We focus our efforts on projects such as our Summer Camp Scholarship program where we select 30 children living in shelters to attend a fully sponsored eight-week camp, and school supply drives, where we purchase new backpacks with supplies for children living in local shelters and personally deliver them, just to name a few. With over $100,000 raised in the last decade, Children’s Hope is dedicated to enriching the lives of the underserved.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I received my Bachelor of Engineering in Computer Engineering at Stony Brook University’s Women in Science and Engineering honors program. Currently, I am a 25 year old software consultant for Fast Enterprises, working on a project with the New York City Department of Finance.

I started competing in pageants when I was 15, and am now a delegate in the Miss America system as Miss Five Boroughs. I will be competing for Miss New York next July, and I am extremely excited! My platform is Compassion in Action: Empowering Underserved Youth, and through my non-profit Children’s Hope India 3, have been able to empower youth internationally.

Additionally, I have partnered with organizations such as the Pasadena Education Foundation to refurbish underfunded schools in California, Habitat for Humanity to rebuild homes affected by Hurricane Harvey in Florida, Island Harvest to provide meals to hungry New Yorkers, and Camp Code in Louisiana to teach computer programming to girls in lower income communities.

I am a born and raised New Yorker, avid Bollywood Dancer, second-degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do, and have been to 20 different countries. I hope to be an example to women everywhere that you don’t need to fit into any box, and you can be dynamic and successful at the same time.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Starting an organization from the ground up has its proud moments, but also its obstacles. Luckily, I learned resilience in my life at a very young age. When I was 10 years old, I was on the path to obtaining my black belt in Tae Kwon Do. The black belt exam is an extremely rigorous one, and multiple hours long. The last part of the test involves breaking six inches of wood with your bare hand. I was 10, and small, and not very strong. I obviously didn’t break it on the first try. I kept trying, and trying, and everyone in the room was watching me, especially my family. My hand was bleeding, and I was crying and exhausted. Years of hard work had led to this moment, and I wasn’t sure if I could cross that finish line. I remember making eye contact with my parents across the room, and I knew that if they believed in me right now, surely, I could believe in myself. I also remembered how much of Tae Kwon Do is mental, and not physical. On the 8th try, I finally broke the boards, and it was the best feeling in the world. At a young age, I learned a very important lesson that I carried on with me through my years of starting my non-profit, going through school, and starting my career: I won’t always succeed at something the first time around. In fact, I probably won’t succeed in MOST things the first time around. But, if you really want something, and you really put your mind to it, anything is possible.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

People-pleasing! Competing in pageants is the best decision I have made in my life, from the thousands of scholarship dollars I’ve earned, to the interview and networking skills I’ve gained, to the platform I’ve received to raise awareness for underserved youth everywhere.

But, pageantry has also brought some of the hardest lessons with it. I used to base my self worth on what others thought of me, and I always strived to get people to like me. After all, to win a pageant, you have to get a panel of five or six random people to subjectively decide that they like you the best amongst all the other delegates. However, in my years of pageantry, I learned that it is quite literally impossible to please everyone. I spend months doing mock interviews, working on my community service initiative, practicing my walk on stage, perfecting my talent routine, and working out daily, to ensure that I am my best self by the time competition comes around. I quickly realized that winning or losing was not a reflection of who I was as a person, or whether or not I was good enough to win. It came down to subjectivity. I won’t always be everyone’s cup of tea, and I have to be okay with that! I realized that all the work I put in to these competitions is, at the end of the day, to be a better version of myself, and this is a win regardless of the competition. This is a lesson I carry with me in every area of my life, and I’ve learned that the most important opinion someone has of me, is my own.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.childrenshopeindia.org/ch3
• Instagram: rheaaa_13 / missfiveboroughsny