STRIDES OF HOPE - Team Asha Dallas

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.

Nitin Jayaram

The Cause

Education, I believe forms a very integral part of our society. It empowers all to make rational decisions, correct judgments and contribute to the upliftment of the society. Illiteracy, poverty and exploitation form a vicious circle, which many children and adults find nearly impossible to break out of. The long term and more permanent solution to this I strongly believe is Education.

My Goal

Is to complete a Half Marathon on December 13th and raise at least $100 per mile run. With the money raised here I plan to support the project with details below. This one is implemented in Karnataka by Akshara foundation with support from local non-profits like ASHA (Dallas Chapter) and Pragathi Austin.

Project Details

Accelerated Reading Program: This project is directed towards underprivileged kids in Government schools of Karnataka, India. Though enrolled in schools, one in two kids failed to graduate or dropped out. One key reason is the lack of learning and as the years pass the weaker children lag further and further behind till they finally drop out. Orthodox teaching methods, lack of facilities, monotonous books further fuel the disinterest in kids. So a big challenge is to improve the quality of education provided especially in primary schools. Given the enormity of the situation the Government is seeking support from non-profits like Akshara foundation, ASHA for Education, Pragathi to name a few.

It was realized through some studies and pilot projects that reading cards, which consisted of text, illustrations and colors, worked as a great catalyst to draw the attention of the students. Teachers were also trained on unconventional teaching methods, like encourage the children to come forth and make an effort to read/describe the cards using the pictures in the card. The cards when used as a supplement or even a replacement in certain cases proved extremely useful in exponentially increasing their reading abilities. This turned a considerable amount of kids who could not even recognize a letter of the alphabet to reading words within a very short duration. Kids with minimal reading skills developed into good readers.

Such simple yet very effective means of education helped increase the number of kids graduating and more importantly keep them from dropping out. Non profits like Akshara foundation, Asha and Pragathi have been raising funds, supporting projects, working very closely with the schools/government, train teachers, monitor and record progress. With further support this can be extended to larger areas educating more kids and making this a widespread success. AT the next level this can opened to other areas like Science, Math, History… once the kids gain reading skills and show interest in further development.

It excites me a great deal knowing the impact this will have on a substantial population of kids. I highly encourage you to donate to this very worthy cause and no amount is considered small.

Tax deductions:
Contributions to Asha are 100% tax deductible in the US (under section 501(c)(3) of the IRS code), and 50% tax deductible in India (under section 80G of the Income tax act).

Why Asha?
i) The Children - Asha’s mission is to catalyze socio-economic change in India through education of underprivileged children. Please follow this link to get a good understanding of “Asha For Education”.

http://www.ashanet.org/

ii) Asha is a volunteer run organization with an almost zero overhead cost which means all your money goes directly to the children.

iii) 100% non-religious

Your Donations -> ASHA -> Directs 100% of the funds to Accelerated Reading Program.

You can also choose to donate to a different project supported by ASHA. You can find the entire list at

http://www.ashanet.org/projects/

Web links to Pragathi and Akshara foundation are

www.pragathinet.org

http://www.aksharafoundation.org/