Asha for Education - Mission

1. Asha for Education - Mission “To catalyze socio-economic change in India through education of underprivileged children.”

2. Asha for Education • Non-profit, volunteer driven organization • Focuses on child education • Open financial accounts • Contributions are Tax deductible. (501(c)3) • Total disbursements as of 2004 exceed $5,300,000 • Every dollar raised through donations goes to projects in India

4. Asha Austin Projects Asha Sikshan Sansthan Bharatiya Jan Seva Ashram Prasanna Jyoti Raja Shivaji Vidyalaya Seva Chakkara Orphanage Sristhi Special Academy Banyan BJSA ASS RSV PJ,Sristhi SCO,Banyan

5. An example Asha project:Seva Chakkara Orphanage A home for 100 children in all grades from pre-schooling to college. • In Choolai, Chennai, T.N. • Provides living and education expenses for children • Has a primary school for classes I-V • Employs 5 teachers • Sends children from class VI to local schools • Provides vocational skills to the children on a case-by-case basis

6. How we work with Seva Chakkara • Dec ‘99: Orphanage visited by Sanjeev, an Asha volunteer. • Feb ‘01: $5000 approved by Asha, NYC/NJ for teacher’s salaries. • Jan ‘02: Volunteers spend substantial time at the orphanage. Learning from the experiences, we realized that the basic requirements of food, shelter and health-care needed to be met before education. • May ‘02: Innovative fund-raiser - Support-A-Child raises $20,000/year. • Provides food, clothing, health-care for the children. • Covers the rent for a decent living quarters for the children. Non-financial help towards improvement of teaching techniques

7. Continued involvement with Seva Chakkara • Once basic expenses were met, we could work with the orphanage on a long-standing problem: the lack of a permanent accommodation. • Currently working towards securing the current building as a permanent home. • An amount of $80,000 is required. • Already raised $69,400 through many innovative fundraisers. • Austin Asha raised the remaining of $10,600 through this marathon program.

8. Asha Sikshan Sansthan • Situated in the Reoti village of Ballia, UP it strives to improve the conditions of the dalits through education. The present situation is that either children do not go to school or need to get into manual labor by the time they are 10 and drop out. • Raises awareness about education • Provides a free school for 100 children • Provides vocational skills like tailoring, knitting, organic farming, bee keeping to the chilren so they have more options than daily wage laborers.

9. Bharathia Jan Seva Sansthan • Situated in the Janpur district, UP BJSA provides basic literacy for children in the village community. There are presently 41 children in three grades.

10. More about Bharathia Jan Seva Sansthan - Asha is also supporting a initiative of a sewing center as a vocational skill for adolescent girls. While this effort was only started last year 18 girls have successfully started earning a living through their training. • Asha is looking into the possibility of implementing the mid-day meal scheme at the school to improve the nutrition available to the children and increase retention. • The organization has a goal of making the society progressive by ensuring self-dependence among the people and fighting social malpractices like dowry, substance abuse and superstition.

11. Prasanna Jyothi • An organization that takes care of orphan or disadvantaged girls in Bangalore. • All living expenses of the girls are taken care of. • Apart from education the girls learn a variety of vocational skills as arts including paintings, wall decorations, garlands of artificial flowers, etc. • The girls are not only self-reliant, they are taught Karate for self-defense. • The age group of the girls is 5-18. Two of the elder girls are doing their 3 yr diploma is CS and plan to continue Engineering.

12. Raja Shivaji Vidyalaya • An Asha Star project. • The project aims to improve the lab facilities available in the Sawantwadi village in Sindhudurg District of Maharashtra. • The project was brought to us by Rajesh Zele who wanted to improve the school of the village he comes from. • As an Asha Star project Rajesh takes care of all requirements for the labs by fundraising through his friends and donating himself.

13. Sristhi Special Academy • Caters to children with mental disabilities including downs syndrome, autism. • Teaches basic life skills to enable children to take care of themselves. • Identifies the talents of each child and tries to match a vocational skill that the child can do to integrate them in the society. • Work on awareness of the disabilities and remove the taboo attached with mental disabilities in the society.

14. Banyan • Provides free medical care and shelter to mentally ill destitute women and reunites them with their families. • In the past 10 years Banyan has been instrumental in the rehabilitation of over 600 women. Currently 400 women are being looked after at banyan. • Asha is looking towards working on vocational skills that might help integrate the women back to the society. • Vocational skills, while helping inmates build the confidence also helps them to earn a living and forms an important part of their treatment as 'Occupational therapy'.

15. More about Banyan • The Methodology of treatment includes: • Meditation/Silence Therapy • Sharing • Recreational Patterns of Therapy • The Group Home model • Vocational training/Occupational therapy • Follow up as part of after care - The Banyan has a 24 Hr helpline. An in-house clinic that caters to patients even outside of the Banyan. - Banyan conducts events and workshops on a regular basis to raise awareness and also interacts closely with government bodies to help duplicate its model.

16. How we do it 1) By organizing small events like Play and Help. Little work, little funds for loads of fun!

17. 2) Team-Asha raising funds through the marathon program. Asha provides professional training and moral support to help people successfully complete the marathon. Runners utilize the opportunity to learn about Asha projects and raise funds for them as they train over five months.

18. “Just unable to put myself to sleep …You don’t get too many opportunities in a life time to achieve something as big as this.” - Radhakrishna “I was dead tired by mile 20 and I don't think I would have been able to do it if Priya, Rick and Sanjeev did not cheer and run with me through the last six miles. It still hasn't sunk in that I've completed the marathon.” -Anita On 13th Feb 2005, 9 Asha runners successfully completed the Austin Freescale marathon. 8 runners completed the half-marathon.This event has raised over $27,000.

19. 3) Coordinating Support-A-Child programs • Get to know every child in the organization. • Find support for him/her child through donors. • Tracking the progress of the child and keep donors updated of the happenings at the organization. Meet Lakshmi: Lakshmi, age 18, was left at the Seva Chakkara orphanage by her mother when she was 14. She is now pursuing her BSc in CS. Goals: MSc, and possibly PhD degrees in computer science. Her hobbies include painting, carromboard, and chess. She also enjoys reading storybooks.

20. What we need Enthusiastic volunteers who want to make a difference in the lives of the underprivileged. Please signup at the Asha table or contact us for more information.