Volume 2: Issue 1. June 2009

AASHRITHA

Helping Hands V O L U M E

IN THIS ISSUE:

Aashritha is one Year Old

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J U N E

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Aashritha is One Year Old

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Project LIFE - into 2 Health Services Know our coordinators

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59th Republic Day Celebrations

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NGO - Making a Difference

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Child Labor in India

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Ways of Donating to Aashritha

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Contact Details and Board

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Did you know ! The Baily Bridge located in the ladakh valley between Dras and Suru rivers in the Himalayan Mountains, is the highest bridge in the world. It was built by the Indian Army in August 1982.

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It is with immense pleasure and pride, we present the 3rd edition of Aashritha Newsletter on the eve of successful completion of a year. The past one year has been filled with a wide range of events and our association has channelled vital funds into many worthwhile causes. A famous Chinese proverb says “When planning for a year, plant Corn. When planning for a decade, plant trees. When planning for life, train and educate”, so is our primary objective, providing education. Our journey started, when we came across a 5 year old kid, Divya, who lost her parents to a natural calamity, now staying with her grand mother, who cannot afford her education. This paved the way for our first project ‘Project AbInitio’, with an objective of creating a database of such children, who are in need of education and survival with care. Project AbInitio, helped us to make our first step by adopting seven school going kids, whose families were unable to afford their education and were sent to work. These kids are now sent to a residential school and are under the supervision of select teachers. This fulfills the objectives of our second project, ‘Project Guru’. This has motivated all the coor-

dinators to work more hard to make sure that all requirements of the kids are met. In fact, this achievement has inspired more new members to be part of the association. The association formed with a handful of members, now has more than 200 members working towards the objectives.

The other project undertaken by Aashritha is ‘Project Paathshala’, under which Aashritha provides some financial assistance to improve the standard and quality of education in schools. Presently, Aashritha is providing financial assistance to an elementary school, run by the government in the province of Andhra Pradesh. Aashritha made it’s first donation to renovate the existing furniture in the school. This was done on the eve of Independence day ’08 and the smiles in the faces of the kids, have motivated our members to work more hard. Many students in India were not able to pursue higher education because of the financial problems at home. So, Aashritha has decided to provide assistance to such select students and

launched ’Project H.E.L.P’, Higher Education and Learning Program in September ’08 with an objective of providing financial assistance to the financially challenged students for their higher studies. Ms Seema Gaur, is the first student to be assisted under this project, to pursue her bachelors’ degree in Dental Surgery. This is published as a success story in the second issue of the first volume of ‘Helping Hands’. On the occasion of our first anniversary, we decided to spread the wings of Aashritha into health services, ‘Project LIFE’. This project is initiated with an objective of providing financial assistance for healthcare to the financially challenged students and career seekers. The first case has already been taken up and all the members are working towards the same. The thought of giving Life as a gift to someone is wonderful, isn’t it? We would like to thank each and every member for all the support, without which this wouldn’t have been possible. We hope to have your support through out our journey and make us fulfill the objectives of our association. Contributions from: Rajesh K, Sunil G and Aashritha Homepage Please feel free to contact us: [email protected]

“Hands That Help Are Better Than Hands That Pray”

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Project LIFE - Aashritha into Health Services On the occasion of the first anniversary, Aashritha has decided to extend it’s services to health services. To direct this, Project LIFE has been launched, focused at providing Health care facilities to financially challenged students or career seekers.

Ramalakshmi, first to be considered in the Project LIFE

“Project LIFE is focused at providing Health Care facilities to financially challenged students or career seekers”

Aashritha has extended it’s helping hand to the first case under Project LIFE, Ms Rama Lakshmi, suffering from Aplastic Anaemia. Rama Lakshmi is a graduate from Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University (JNTU), Hyderabad in Electronics and

Communications Engineering. She is on the bed since 2 years, struggling to survive against the deadly disease Aplastic Anaemia, commonly known as Bone Marrow Anaemia In simple words, due to this disease the Red Blood Cells in human’s body dies completely and the bone marrow has no capacity to generate the new blood. So, she had to restock her blood every month for her survival. But now, her condition is getting worse day by day that she now has to get fresh blood once in every two weeks. Being financially chal-

lenged, she and her family are not in a position to afford the whole process. As a final remedy to her recurring costs and to be able to survive, she needs to go through a major operation, for which she needs lot of money. All the Co-ordinators and members of Aashritha, have been working hard to help Rama Lakshmi, by collecting donations in all the possible ways. To enable the global support, Aashritha has also made tie-ups with online portals like, ibnlive, andhrajyoti, indiancinemafans etc.

Know our Coordinators Jayachandra Naidu Sakamuri, is Head in-charge and one of the overall coordinators of Aashritha. He believes that a help in times of crisis, makes a lot of difference. He is one of the person behind the formation of Aashritha, with a vision of starting a school and providing free edu-

cation to the needy kids. He is from Tirupati, where Aashritha is registered. He obtained his bachelors’ degree in engineering from Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Kakinada. Recently, he completed his masters’ in Engineering from Indian Institute of technology, Kanpur.

Jayachandra Naidu Sakamuri

59th Republic Day

Republic Day Celebrations at the School in Puttur

HELPING

Aashritha celebrates 59th Republic day at the Government School, Puttur, the school adopted by Aashritha under Paathshala Program from 15th May 2008. This event was celebrated with happiness and lots of smiling faces. All the outstanding performers at the school were HANDS

given a special gifts as a token of appreciation. The event took place in the presence of the parents of all the children. Aashritha observed that students were served food in very old wares, the school offers one-day meal to all the registered kids, under the ‘Mid-day Meal’ program, initiative taken by the government.

So, Aashritha extended its support and sponsored in providing a new set of stainless steel plate & tumbler to each student. On the occasion of the Republic Day, all the students received their set as a gift from the principal of the school and some notable seniors from village.

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NGO - Making a Difference Many NGO’s working towards child education, women empowerment, health issues, environment etc. exist in India. One NGO of that sort making a difference will be discussed in this section in every issue. Aashray - A Home away from Home, is an NGO based in Hyderabad, AP, India, formed in 2003 with the primary objective of providing counseling and shelter to the homeless and street children. Later these kids will be supported by the NGO to get educated.

Aashray is an action aid-initiated project and comes under the banner name of ‘Balatejassu’, created in 2001 and now runs 7 shelters all over the province of Andhra Pradesh in India. Aashray believes in the strengths of the people and their ability to fight for their own rights. They work on the premise that all people have equal rights irrespective of their socio-economic, political and cultural backgrounds. A volunteer from the Organisation,

Children from Aashray’s shelter Celebrating Holi street educator, identifies a new street kid and brings him/her to the shelter. These children are terrified and refuse to go back home. So, the educator counsels the kid and sends him back to the family. If the child has no home, the kid is adopted and taken care at the Shelter of Aashray and is provided with all the support needed. Aashray has rehabilitated around 400 children until now Source: http://aashraychildren.org/

As per the statistics, 6.75% of children are working as a child labor and 67.44% are attending school, whereas 18.8 % of children are neither working nor attending the school. What can be done, to eradicate Child Labor? Well, Indian Govern-

ment has taken many steps, like providing free education, mid day meal etc. But, are these sufficient enough to overcome this issue? According to the Child labor law, no one under the age of 14 should be hired to do any sort of work. But, how effectively is the law followed is a question.

an NGO is doing it’s best to bring back

Child Labor in India Child Labor in India is a human rights issue. As per the government of India, around 20 million children are exploited to work in various industries across India.

“Aashritha, as

the children, What is Aashritha doing? Aashritha is adopting the kids, who are forced to work because of the financial situations at home. As an NGO, it is doing it’s best to bring back the children to school.

We can make the eradication of child Labor possible by not employing any children under 14 years of age and making sure that they get their basic right to education.

working as daily labor, to school”

Children Working in a Bangle Industry, Photo: UNICEF India Website

Ways of Donating to Aashritha Direct Bank Deposit / Online Transfer State Bank of India, I.I.T. Campus, Kanpur Uttar Pradesh, India - 208 016 Name: AASHRITHA Acc. No. 30334843960 Branch SWIFT Code: SBININBB499 Branch IFSC Code: SBIN0001161 Branch MICR Code: 208002041

Money Order / Cheque

PayPal

Donations can also be made through Cheques or Money orders. They may be sent to the following Postal Address

PayPal is the most trusted and secured method of donating for all the international donors. For sending donations through PayPal, please use the following email ID,

Aashritha Helping Hands Association C/O S. Somasekhar Naidu, D.No. 9 - 22, Ramasamudram Tirumalakuppam PO, Puttur Mandal Chittor Dist., Andhra Pradesh, India-517584

[email protected]

Thank You

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Aashritha Helping Hands Community was established in IIT Kanpur, India, UP. A group of similar minded students transformed their thoughts to reality and formed Aashritha. Aashritha began its journey on 22nd

Aashritha

February 2008, with just a handful of students. The

Please contact us on our email:

community is registered as NGO in India since 1st

[email protected]

August 2008

For More Information, Please Visit

Our Motive:

http://aashritha.up.to

“To Provide financial and moral support to underAlso visit our blog at:

privileged children for their education and thereby

http://aashrithablogs.blogspot.com

improving the average education level in rural India with main focus on child education

Helping Hands Community June 2009

Responsible Board Overall

coordinators of the Community are responsible for the proper functioning of the community. They are responsible in making vital decisions like selecting kids and dealing the financial aspects. Regional coordinators are chosen as per the interest of the members according to the region. They are responsible to raise awareness and also for the activities of the community in their region. They need to cooperate with the overall coordinators in reaching the goals of Aashritha.

Overall Coordinators • Aparna Pusapati

• Phani Shankar

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Chennai - Pulikesi

• Sandeep Datla

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Hyderabad - Bala Koteshwara Rao and Arihant Jain

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Jangareddy Gudem - Avinash Varma

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Kanpur - Avinash Varma

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Kharagpur - D Srikanth

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Roorkee - Pramod Kumar Soni & Senthilnath G T

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Thane - Deepak Chadda

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Tirupati - Suryanarayan Reddy

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Warangal - Rajesh Pogula

• Sandeep J Gupta

Regional Coordinators International •

London, UK - Rajesh Kaligithi

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Netherlands - Sandeep J Gupta

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New Jersey & New York, USA Divya Vedullapalli

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Regina, Canada - Sunil Gurrapu

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Texas, USA - B C S Thezeshvi

National •

Bangalore - T Naveen Kumar & G Naresh Kumar

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Battelanka - Avinash Varma

• Hanumantha Prasad • Jayachandra