Asha’s History
Asha for Education is a non-profit organization dedicated to the support of basic education in India. Asha, which means hope in many Indian dialects, was founded at the University of California, Berkeley in 1991 and has since grown to over 50 chapters scattered throughout the United States, Europe, East Asia and India. Each of these chapters raises funds to support various education-related projects in India.
Since its inception, Asha has partnered with more than 800+ NGOs from across 24 states in India and has disbursed in excess of $32 million. In 2014 alone, Asha has disbursed $2.85 million and has supported the education of 250,000+ kids in India directly and many hundreds of thousands more indirectly.
Asha RTP’s Story
Asha RTP was founded in late 2012 by Anubha Gupta who understood the importance of education and the need to provide such opportunities to the underprivileged. Having been involved with an Asha chapter in Florida, she realized there is no chapter in all of North Carolina. After hosting the first of many board game nights to raise awareness, several volunteers were recruited to join the team. Starting as a satellite chapter to Asha-Atlanta, Asha RTP has successfully raised over $3000. The first major undertaking for the chapter was a Holi Festival in March 2013 which was a great success. On May 19th, 2013 Team Asha RTP participated in a half-marathon and 10k race and raised over $2000 for the supported project.The aim of the group is to generate awareness amongst the local community in-order to collectively support and provide financial assistance to grassroots educational movements in India. Every year, the group brings together the community with a fun-filled and colorful events, and in thence doing so generates funds to support several education projects. Members of Asha Chaptername not only help provide financial assistance to the projects, but also attempt to maintain a close contact and personal involvement with the organizations and projects in India year-round.
To maximize the chapter’s outreach, the group selects diverse education related projects from various parts of India including rural education, education of girl children, vocational training and non-formal education, education and support for physically/mentally challenged children as well as teacher training programs. Asha Chaptername work closely with other Asha chapters to ensure quality support is provided to educational efforts in India.