Changemakers' Bulletin: Marching Forward with Empowerment and Education
March 2025
Aasraa Trust was established as a social work trust focusing on education of underprivileged children in 2009, in response to a crisis for intervention for the welfare of children from the riverbed slum under the Bindal bridge. Aasraa then worked with the river bed community to promote the need for education and started an after school project to augment school education.
Project Street Smart was started on the pavements of Astley Hall in 2011 with a group of 5 street children. The objective was to keep the children off the streets and provide them with basic literacy through art, craft, music and audio visual medium.
Today, Aasraa works towards empowering street and slum children through education, vocational training, nutrition, medical care and providing shelter homes. Our mission is to level the playing field for children who have neither seen books nor stepped into a school. The children we work with come from extremely impoverished backgrounds and are mostly rag pickers, beggars, addicts, runaways and orphans. We work with more than 9000 children.
To know more about AASRAA, please visit: www.aasraatrust.org
AASRAA TRUST LEADERSHIP
Founder, Chairman - AASRAA Trust
Shaila Brijnath
Shaila’s degree is in Education. She worked as a European Equity Trader in London ,Paris and New York. She was a member of the New York and London Stock Exchanges. She left Investment Banking to follow her dream of returning to India to work with underprivileged children. She founded the Aasraa Trust in 2009 to educate and nurture slum and street children.
Secretary, AASRAA Trust
Neelu Khanna
Neelu, a qualified teacher & travel trade executive, left the corporate world to pursue her dream of working with the under served. Based in Dehradun, she is a social activist for the last 20 years and is working for educational opportunity for economically deprived children.
Trustee of The John Martyn Memorial Trust and HindSka Trust, she supports Udayan Care as a core member of the team at Dehradun
Chief Executive Officer, AASRAA Trust
Amit Balodi
Amit Balodi, from Malli Bhensoli, Uttarakhand, has been a social change advocate for over a decade, influenced by his family's work in women's empowerment and child rights. Starting in his school years, he has led various initiatives and holds a BA from Delhi University. Since 2012, Amit has been with Aasraa Trust, playing key roles in grassroots interventions and making a lasting impact on underserved communities.
AASRAA PROGRAMS
#Children: 431
Street Smart
Street Smart works with slum and street children who rag pick and beg for a living. The original focus of this project was art therapy and basic literacy. Our aim is to bring children into literacy and mainstream them into schools. 1021 children have been mainstreamed in the past few years.
#Children: 1802
Wings of Doon
This project was originally situated on the banks of Dehradun’s famous Bindal bridge, working with children of migrant laborers and rag pickers living on the river bed. The main focus of this project is to provide after school support for mainstreamed children.
#Children: 538
AASRAA Shelter Homes
Aasraa runs shelter homes for almost 400
boys and girls in need; orphans, unwanted, abandoned, runaway, beaten, abused children and children with special needs. Everyone is welcome. We also support the residential facility of a local government school, Rajkiya Purva Madhyamik
Vidhyalaya (RPMV) in Dehradun.
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# Children : 667
Mainstreamed into Schools
Aasraa Trust is working in partnership with The Government of Uttarakhand, Education Department, and The Education Alliance (TEA) to improve the quality of education in sample selection of six Government Schools in Dehradun under the School Quality Enhancement Program.
There is incredible potential of improving the quality of education in these six Government schools’. Aasraa will be focusing on infrastructure, capacity building, pedagogy, lesson planning, improving TLM & other resources and finally, using Computer Aided learning to impact the learning levels of these marginalized children.
#Children : 493
Mobile Learning
Aasraa uses modern technology, Computer Aided Learning (CAL) programs that are audio, visual and interactive to capture the imagination and interest of children. CAL links concept and curriculum with web based and e-learning content. CAL has a multiplier effect on a child’s learning curve; grasp and retention is greater than the traditional methods of rote learning.
Aasraa’s revolutionary Mobile Computer Lab buses has been made for maximum impact reaching and teaching children in different situations and locations.
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#Children: 280
NIOS
Children not in education are enrolled in the Open Basic Education (OBE) program of National School of Open Schooling (NIOS) in Level A, B & C (Class 3rd, 5th & 8th).
Basic learning begins initially with play-way method while imbuing basic hygiene & education. The focus is on computer-aided learning and advanced learning material is made available. Our outreach team makes sure that the child attends the program regularly. A quarterly assessment of the child is conducted and according to the progress made, a plan for their mainstreaming is prepared.
AASRAA TRUST CAMPAIGNS
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Street to School
'Street to School' is the first step of bringing children into education. The program transforms the begging, rag picking and working 'Out of School' street & slum children into confident, happy children who can read and write to mainstream them to formal schools.
Fundraise for AASRAA
Please champion a cause for Education, Nutrition, Remedial Education, Silver Lining Project and support AASRAA Trust
Contact AASRAA Trust
Address
119/1 Vasant Vihar, Dehradun 248006, Uttarakhand India
