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President's Message
Since its inception, Ashraya’s goal has been to provide a helping hand to young girls and women to improve their well-being and to help them stand on their own two feet some day. In pursuant of this goal, Ashraya supports projects in vocational training, preschool and early childhood education, child health, financial support to girls for education and training, and upgrading of poor schools. Based on the experience over the past few years, we have decided to emphasize the education and training components and phase out the early childhood development over time. Within vocational training, we concentrate on informal training of the type we have been providing successfully in villages, where there seems to be the most demand for such training, but expanded our support to post-secondary vocational training of 6-12 month duration. Also, we are now financing selectively post-secondary education for poor girls who obtain high marks in grade 12 examination and show academic promise. To ensure income targeting, scholarships are only provided to girls completing their studies in government-run and NGO-run schools. The children enrolled in these schools are among the poorest families. Thanks to the hard work of our volunteers, all our projects continue to perform well. Our approach continues to be to partner with an non-governmental institution or an individual who wishes to undertake projects in line with Ashraya’s goals. Ashraya has in its eight years of existence helped over 5,000 children, adolescent girls and women. We have been able to do so at a modest cost of less than Rs. 400 (about US$10) per head. While we are proud of these accomplishments, we are also keenly aware of the vast needs. All of us working with Ashraya believe that we must do whatever we can within our means. I would like to take the opportunity to thank the volunteers who helped me manage Ashraya's operations in India: Dr. Inder Sud, President of Ashraya-USA continues to provide us not only financial support but also invaluable guidance in our work. On the ground, we could not have done without the hard work of the many people who actually managed the projects supported by us. I would particularly like to acknowledge the contributions of Mrs. Parbodh Gupta, Mrs. Asha Thakur, Mrs. Rupinder Uppal, and Mrs. Bina Butail (Himachal Pradesh). I am also grateful for the cooperation and support of the principals of the schools in helping identify for us needy and deserving girls for scholarship support. No members of Ashraya's managing committee or the project sponsors received any compensation for their efforts, allowing Ashraya to keep its administrative expenses extremely modest. I would also like to offer my heartfelt thanks to our friends in India and abroad who contributed to Ashraya. You can be assured that your funds are supporting very worthwhile efforts. May God bless you all. Mrs. Manorma Mayor |
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