asha-publicity

Asha’s Beginning

Asha was founded in the summer of 1991 at the University of California, Berkeley by a group of students interested in helping their country. As their activities grew and word spread, chapters started sprouting in far away places such as Canada, Singapore, and of course India. Today, there are more than 60 chapters around the world. Asha is also registered as a public charitable trust in India. In 2002, Asha received worldwide recognition when Dr. Sandeep Pandey the founder of Asha received the prestigious Magsaysay Award for Emergent Leadership.

Asha Chennai

Several projects in Chennai and vicinity have been funded by Asha chapters ever since 1992. Asha Chennai took root in 2002 as a separate chapter. Asha-Chennai has grown since then to include more than 15 highly committed volunteers. Unlike other Asha for Education chapters, we execute the projects ourselves. We are actively executing about 10 projects which together support more than 170 schools, run 10 libraries, run 7 RTCs and provide scholarships for over 100 students. We have been raising funds for these from individual donations, donations from corporations and organizations as well as from other Asha chapters.  Asha Chennai registered a separate charitable trust Asha South India Trust to ease the operations.

Asha’s Organization

The various chapters of Asha are organized loosely. We share the same basic goal of education but our focus may differ from chapter to chapter. Thus Asha-Chennai may emphasize improving government schools whereas some other chapter may emphasize health education.

Asha chapters often collaborate on projects and exchange information about prospective projects, project evaluations and policies. We understand and respect that individual chapters may differ in the policies, ideas and plans for future projects.

Asha-Chennai does not have a formal membership or organizational structure. Our membership consists almost entirely of volunteers who make their time and help available as per their interests and abilities. All interested people are welcome to join Asha-Chennai. To register as a volunteer please send a mail to our email ID. You will then get added to the mailing list and be informed about our meetings and activities.

The administrative activities of the group are carried out by a ‘core group’ of volunteers who distribute the responsibilities among themselves. The membership of the ‘core group’ changes over time as new members get involved or others temporarily drop out because of their time commitments. Please see our administrative guide to get an idea about the roles and processes within our organisation.

Our Financial Reports

You can look at our financial reports and auditor’s reports for the following period online: