Running with Asha
Asha for Education is a volunteer run organization aiming to catalyze socio-economic change in India through education. The objectives of the group are:
- To provide access to education for underprivileged children in India
- To promote universal education and decrease child labor
- To support grass roots initiatives in deprived and marginalized communities in India
- To address, whenever possible, other issues affecting human life such as health care, environmental and socio-economic issues, women's issues, human rights issues, etc.
As a part of Team Asha this runner has committed to meet the above objectives through your support. Please read the runner's personal statement below and use the donate button on the right to make a contribution to the runner's objective.
Kavitha Srinivasan
Elementary school
The cause
It was 100°F and the air was still and unimaginably humid. The classroom had no benches or chairs, forget about fans or air coolers. Around sixty children were seated on the bare hot concrete floor in that room that was the size of five or six office cubicles put together. This was all of the school, an elementary school in a village 100 kms from Chennai, India. I had the opportunity to visit this project that Asha Dallas supports. This project is called SEA and strives to improve the social and economic conditions of the villages in the tsunami affected coastline near Chennai by focusing on education.
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SEA works with existing government schools and supplements with more teachers and conducts after school tuition centers which they call motivation centers. Their main aim is to prevent child labor a prevalent issue after the tsunami era where young boys are pulled into the family profession of fishing when they should be spending their time in school. SEA has been working in 45 villages for the past 5 years and have been very successful in implementing a good education system for the whole community with majority support from NGOs like us.
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This is my fourth half-marathon for Asha and so far it has been a very satisfying injury-free experience to run 13.1 miles and raise funds for Asha and support the efforts in improving socio-economic conditions through education of the underprivileged. This year I have pledged to raise 2600$ to support two projects-SEA and Sarva Vidya Trust
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Future nurses from Sarva Vidya Trust
Sarva Vidya Trust aims to provide girl children from economically handicapped families with a job oriented professional education in the field of paramedical. Once the girls finish their 12th grade they are encouraged to apply for nursing courses which can be a one year certification, two year diploma or 4 year BSc nursing. Once they finish their college education they are guaranteed a job as nurses in local hospitals or as home nurses by the trust. I would like to support four students through my marathon program. It costs about 300$/year to support one student and covers books, exam fees, hostel accommodation, teachers’ salary and transportation.
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My pledge
I have always believed that the gift of education is the best gift you can give an underprivileged child and is the only means to eradicate poverty. After being with Asha Dallas for three years and seeing the impact that our efforts have brought to the lives of 100s of children in India, I am a stronger beleiver of promoting basic education. Please help me reach my goal of 2600$ by sponsoring a mile (for 200$ a mile) or half mile or any other amount that you are comfortable with to help these underprivileged children earn a good life that can be achieved only through education.
