Thursday, February 12, 2009

Meeting with Asha Kiran Trust

Sumita, in her groundwork for our pavement school project, filed this in:


I met up with the trustee of the Asha Kiran Trust, Mr. Nandlal Aggarwal, yesterday. He spoke with me at length about the NGO.

Asha Kiran Trust was founded by individuals who were keen to take basic education to the grassroots. They run pavement schools for 1000 children all around Mumbai. Age group-6 yrs onwards till they clear Std 10. Most of the kids who come to their school are also studying in government schools. It is basically a tutorial/tuition class for the kids whose parents can't teach them at home or afford proper education. They provide snacks, stationery, school uniforms, old & new clothes to kids who come in every morning & evening to study at their pavement school. The teachers who teach there regularly are on their payroll.

A bus has been donated to them to ferry kids to the school.The trust maintains it and pays for the driver & conductor.

They have a well equipped mobile hospital which provides medical help in diff areas of Andheri (W).

Recently they have bought land in Murbad which is 90 kms from Mumbai which is home to 150 cows. Later they plan to build a school and old age home too.

He was very happy with the kind of work we were doing and offered stationery, etc if we need to help the victim's kids and also medical help through their contacts, if possible.

Where could we come in?

He asked for volunteer teachers,
Money to help with running the entire setup of teachers, staff and student education funding - to the extent we can.

Sent from BlackBerry® on Airtel

2 comments:

~G said...

Hi Kiran,
Have Mr. Aggarwal get in touch with the concerned people of the Teach India initiative. I have been told that when the teachindia thing started, more numbers volunteered than what was needed. Those volunteers who haven't been assigned ngos have been told to wait and put on hold. I think if Asha Kiran gets these volunteers, both parties win. :)

sscribbles said...

Hi Kiran,

A lovely project that you have undertaken. Do let me know if you need any kind of assistance from Delhi. In case you are planning to expand to Delhi, I can chip in.