Contributions can help Pune-based Ashraya serve a mid-day nutritious meal to children at their center. In most cases, the meals the children eat at AIC are the only meals they eat for the whole day.

Funds can give them regular meals which can boost their immunity and growth. Updates will be provided to you on the impact of your contribution. 

About Ashraya Initiative for Children (AIC)

AIC is a community based organization that serves adivasi children and families living in impoverished slum communities in Pune, India. They also rehabilitate former street children in a loving, stable family environment. Through their initiatives, they support the education of over 200+ children.

Serving the Waghri and Sikligar community 

AIC specifically helps the the Waghris and Sikligar communities that remain profoundly disadvantaged in every sense of the word.  The community are Denotified (formerly "Criminal") Tribes and systematically oppressed. These populations have difficulty accessing external aid, face ongoing discrimination, and remain below the poverty line, with households of 10 to 12 people living on less than ₹70 a day ($1). 

Lack of nutrition is a huge problem 

AIC's programs address the chronic lack of education and malnutrition among children in the slums by enrolling them to school, providing mid-day meals, arranging transport and school supplies and after-school tutoring. All this to over 200 children daily making sure they have everything they need to succeed.


In a recent government survey of the Yerawada slum, AIC social workers discovered that not a single member of the community had been issued a Below Poverty Line (BPL) card ( to buy heavily subsidised commodities such as rice, wheat, sugar, pulses, and kerosene) despite the fact that many of these families earn next to nothing, and have a legitimate claim to these cards.

It is against this backdrop of inequality, discrimination, and extreme poverty that the organization gives hot, fresh, vegetarian meals to the children to combat pervasive food insecurity at home. All children in the program receive fresh vegetarian lunches.

Transforming the future of the community through nutrition 

This is a community in which one out of every two children has a significant risk for stunted physical growth, impaired intellectual development, reduced social skills, limited economic productivity, compromised immune response or even premature death, has no opportunity to reach its full potential. 

It is of vital importance to AIC that children from this community receive the chance to not only survive, but also thrive, dream, and become the future agents of change for their communities.

AIC's vision of transforming the Waghri and Sikligar communities from the ground-up in a single generation is a lofty one, but with a tightly-woven support structure, including funds for nutritional enrichment, we can achieve this goal. We want to start with strengthening our mid-day meal program. 

Estimated Cost 

We want to give the children meals rich in protein, essential vitamins, minerals and fats, given that their diet severely lacks these important nutrients. We need your help to feed them. Every single contribution made here will go towards ensuring a child at AIC gets a nutritious meal. 

You can contribute  ₹500 / $25 or more for this project*. The estimated need is ₹40,000 per month for about 100 children. Hence to make this sustainable for the next 10 months, we are looking at a target of at least ₹4,00,000/

Every contribution or share matters towards helping a child grow at AIC. 

Update and report

Ashraya Initiative for Children will provide an update to all the contributors on the fund utilization. These will include updates on how the children have benefited, how many meals served, the progress on the child's health and more. 

AIC will also include photos as well as inputs from teachers, administrators and caregivers of AIC. You can also visit our center in Pune and see the impact you've made.

Know more:
http://www.ashrayainitiative.org/ or
visit Facebook page at facebook.com/ashrayainitiative.

*80G certificates will not be isssued to donors.