About ACT

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The Ashray Charitable Trust (ACT) is a social group dedicated to uplifting the underprivileged community of the Nagwa basti in Varanasi, UP. We believe that all people deserve equal opportunity, regardless of the family circumstances into which they are born.

Since its founding in 2006, ACT has become an integral part of the community, our center just a short walk from the basti. Open six days a week from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., the center regularly welcomes more than 200 people in a day who come for the walk-in clinic, the Ashray School, music and dance classes, coaching sessionscomputer classes, and our four sewing class units each day.

We have already seen great changes in the community since our work began. Even just twenty years ago, no children in this neighborhood attended school. Now, few families are not sending their children to school. Before, far fewer girls attended school than boys, and child marriages were prevalent. Now, as many girls attend school as boys, child marriage has all but disappeared from our area, and girls are hardly ever married off against their wishes.

But there is still so much more to do. We want to give our school children a full meal to help meet their nutritional needs. We want to better support our students who pass through the Ashray School and help them continue their educations at the secondary and post-secondary levels. We went to improve the living conditions in the basti. We want to break the desperate cycle of poverty in our community and empower them to build a brighter future for themselves. And to do this, we need your help.

Now that we have been granted an FCRA account, we can receive donations both from within India and from abroad. If you want to help us in our fight for our community,

ACT NOW!

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