Asha for Education

Asha for Education  is a secular organization dedicated to change in India by focusing on basic education in the belief that education is a critical requisite for socio-economic change.

In keeping with this focus, our volunteers are involved with and support projects that are secular and have an education-related component to them. The objectives of this group are:

To provide education to underprivileged children in India.

To encourage the formation of various local groups across the world to reach out to larger sections of the population.

To support and cooperate with persons and groups already engaged in similar activities.

To raise the required human and other resources to achieve the group objectives.

To provide opportunities to individuals living outside India who wish to participate in Asha activities in India.

To address, whenever possible, other issues affecting human life such as health care, environment, socio-economic aspects and women's issues.

 In the summer of 1991, a few students including V.J.P.Srivatsavoy @ , D. Gupta # , and S. Pandey *  got together to think of ways in which they could play a role in the development of India, the country of their origin. These young people shared the belief that education is a critical requisite and an effective catalyst for social and economic change in India. Basic education became the agenda for the action group that emerged from this gathering. The group was named  Asha  to represent the  hope  that had brought these individuals together and the hope that they aimed to bring into the lives of children in India. In that summer of 1991, Asha was born at the University of California in Berkeley.

 Asha's focus on children's education has galvanised a number of volunteers across the globe. Today, there are 66 Asha  chapters  worldwide: 46 in the US, 12 in India, and 7 in Europe and 1 in Canada.

Volunteers in each of these chapters take personal interest in identifying education-related projects in India, and supporting them through funds and other means.

As part of the Asha charter, all Asha chapters have a high degree of freedom in their activities including the identification, research, support and ownership of projects. However, there is also a good deal of co-operation among chapters and volunteers across chapters. This co-operation is evident in the joint ownership of projects across chapters, formation of focus groups across chapters, cross-chapter discussion on issues of interest, worldwide events like the  Asha-Wide Conference ,  Work-An-Hour , and the  Asha India Conference .