Asha Austin

Asha partners with organizations actively working on social change in India. Here you will find information on our projects and how we work with them.

In Asha each project has a custodian who is responsible for all communication and tracking of a project(Responsibilities of a projects custodian).
Project discussions are based on information received from a project in a proposal format (Proposal template pdf, rtf, word and an example proposal).
Site visits (visits by an Asha volunteer) to the project are essential for Asha to work with a project. Here are some guidelines for volunteers making visits. A site visit report about your experiences with pictures is always helpful.

Click here for a map of projects and fellowships currently supported by Asha-Austin
Current Projects

Project	Asha Contact	Status	Comments
Asha Deepa School for the Blind	Arvind Rao	Seeking Donations	This is a residential school for blind children from the rural and semi-urban areas in Bidar and surrounding districts of Karnataka. Asha supports the living and educational expenses of the blind children
Asha Samajik Vidyalaya, Reoti (formerly known as Asha Shikshan Sansthan)	Kumar Abhinav, Arvind Viswanath, Jairam Kalyanasundharam	Seeking Donations	Asha supports recurring expenses and is also looking into developing the school infrastructure.
Bharathi Trust : Resource Center	Bhaskar Bharath, Savitha Sridharan	Seeking donations	The Bharathi Trust Resource Center is an organic farming community meant to serve as a model farm for the community to understand the practice of sustainable agriculture without the use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers. The idea is to demonstrate that organic farming is a sustainable form of agriculture symbiotic with nature.
Gnanodaya	Bharath Kumar Thandri	Seeking donations	Gnanodaya is a residential school for the children of leprosy affected families. The integrated school also has children from underpriviliged backgrounds. The school while providing opportunities for the families of the leprosy affected, fights the stigma and misconceptions associated with the disease. Asha supports some of the running expenses of the school.
Gramin Shiksha Kendra	Murali Narasimhan	Seeking donations	The organization runs an alternative school in a village near Sawai Madhopur (Rajasthan) and provides meaningful and quality education to 100 children. Beyond running model schools the organization will work with the communities and instill the demand and help with the monitoring of quality education in all local schools.
Humana School for Children-Sahibabad	Itisha Tyagi	Seeking donations	The goal of the project is to provide basic education to the children of migrant labourers, to teach them good life practices and to encourage and enable them to join a formal schooling system.
Jeevan Gnanodaya	Charanya Ravikumar, Sriraman Ramachandran	Seeking donations	This is a residential school for speech and hearing impaired kids from poor, rural backgrounds. In addition to the regular curriculum the school provides speech therapy classes, vocational and industrial training.
Khushboo Welfare Society	Rangakrishnan Srinivasan	Seeking donations	The project provides therapeutic, educational and vocational services for children with mental and multiple disabilities.
Pahla Kadam (Rajasthan Mahila Kalyan Mandal)	Murali Narasimhan	Seeking donations	Pahla Kadam is a special school helping children with mental retardation and other learning disabilities. It provides vocational training for the children to help them become independent. The project reaches out to severely challenged children through the Community Based Rehabilitation workers.
Prasanna Jyothi	Sharanya Rao	Seeking donations	Project supports the education and living expenses of orphan and girls from underprivileged backgrounds.
Samaritan Help Mission	Sreedevi	Seeking donations	The project aims to prevent the exploitation of poor slum children, specially girls, by anti-social elements by providing them opportunity for quality education - from KG to high school and vocational training.
Shristi Special Academy	Vinod Viswanath	Seeking donations	Donations needed for supporting salaries of special educators.
Vasundhara	Sreedevi	Seeking donations	The Science on Wheels program instituted by Vasundhara promotes science education and learning through enjoyable experiences. It instills analytical thinking in students and encourages them to question the world around them. The program visits more than 60 schools. Asha Austin supports the running expenses of the touring bus.

Current Fellowships

Project	Asha Contact	Status	Comments
Namalvaar	Sindhu Rajaram, Vinod Viswanath	Seeking donations	Nammalvar is an organic scientist, who has been working on sustainable farming, organic practices and fighting against large scale single crop farming, against international patents on indian traditional practices etc. for over four decades now. He works primarily in Tamilnadu, Andhra, Karnataka, Kerala and Maharashtra. He has written extensively and published books and articles on these practices that he espouses.
Nandlal Master	Gaurav Agarwal	Seeking donations	Nandlal is a youth from Rajatalab, Varanasi who motivated the youth to form an unregistered body Lok Samati; which not only works on mainstreaming the village children to schools, but also works to monitor the functioning of the local government officials and panchayat. Lok Samati which has grown to 25 villages is working to bring complete economic, social change.
Siddamma	Savitha Sridharan	Seeking donations	Siddamma is a grassroots volunteer in India who works to provide a life of dignity for the Irula Tribals. Her work with the communities includes freeing bonded laborers, organizing the communities into cooperatives and mainstreaming the children into the education system by providing motivational educational centers.

Past Projects

Project	Asha Contact	Status	Comments
Banyan	Preethi Narayanan, Charanya Ravikumar	Completed	Asha supports vocational training streams for the mentally challenged destitute women at Banyan. The traning is not only theurapatic but also provides an opportunity for them to work their way back into society.
Bharatiya Jan Seva Ashram	Gaurav Agarwal	Fully Supported	This project is aimed at sustaining free primary education, books and clothes for children, generating an interest in them for higher education and convincing their parents to send them to school.
Flash Flood Relief for Irulas	Savitha Sridharan	Fully supported	The flash floods washed out a lot of villages and took lives in one week (Dec 16-23, 2007). The coastal areas including Nagapattinam and Cuddalore were the most affected. No lives were lost in the Irula villages but homes were washed out.
Freedom	Savitha Sridharan, Bhaskar Bharath	Seeking donations	Bharathi Trust plays a key role in rescuing bonded laborers in the rice mills around thiruvallur area. More than 300 families have been successfully rescued and rehabilitated. Asha in collaboration with Bharathi Trust intends to create a Center for education. Asha's support to bharathi trust would be in a holistic manner to create access to education for all children from the families.
Prajnalaya	Ankur Bora	N/A	Prajnalaya is a school for underprivileged children in a remote rural district of Assam. Asha supports the organic fertilizer intitative of the school management. This effort would provide employment for members of the community, vocational training for the children and also funds for the school in the future.
Raja Shivaji Vidyalaya	Rajesh Zele	Completed	Donations needed for renovating a science laboratory in the school. More details can be found in the proposal on the project web page.
Seva Chakkara Orphanage	Sanjeev Ranganathan	Fully supported	Supports a 100 children for all basic needs. Also has a primary school from grades I-V.
Sree Nityanandaswamy Educational Trust	Radhakrishna Iyer	N/A	This project is aimed at supporting the educational needs of the under-privelleged children going to school at Sree Nityananda. Asha supports the books, uniforms and tution for the under-privelleged kids.
TSUNAMI: Cuddalore District	Savitha Sridharan	Completed	The district of Cuddalore was heavily damaged by the tsunami waves. After focussing on relief, in the rehabilitation phase Bharathi Trust worked towards permanent accomodation, schools and livelihood generation.

Proposals currently under review

Asha for Education is a non-profit organization dedicated to socio-economic change in India. We believe that education is a critical element of socio-economic change.

In keeping with this focus, our volunteers get involved in identifying, researching, owning, and sustaining projects that target basic education.

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