| The Ashray Trust | a brief introduction
The Ashray Trust consists of a small health clinic on the ground floor, with space for basic health care, labour, two weekly consulting hours by doctors, a periodically organized, educational health care program and some small women consulting groups and platforms. On the 2nd floor there is a small school, with ca. 100-125 pupils getting daily lessons in Hindi, English, Science, General Knowledge, History and Geography. Beside that, there are small courses of tailoring and beautician for girls. They take one year and finish with an exam where they get a qualification.
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More than 30 years the Ashray founder Frans Baartmans lives in Nagwa to share his life with the less advantaged people - mostly riskhaw pullers.
Beside the Nagwa Social Centre, the projects he has set up include the Deva Public Boarding school, a cooperative garden community, micro credits, and an ashram at the 'cutting-edge' of the booming city of Varanasi. In the time left he wrote a series of books and he did research on the prestigious Banares Hindu University. Together with a strong committed group of Indian people, he has helped to make the Nagwa slum a place to live, learn and come together.
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Who we are
We are a very committed secular group of people from various walks of life, who have a desire to serve the very poor and neglected members of an extremely poverty stricken urban slum called Nagwa in Varanasi. It is a part of the city where mostly Rickshaw pullers and their families live. It is overcrowded, the occupants ridden with disease -- in particular TB. For thousands of years - and still in this 21st century - these unfortunate people have been much ignored by health and education programmes owing to the stigma of caste based corruption and the indifference of much of the general society, which adheres to tradition based ideas that they are 'children of a lesser God' - in general that is! Gandhi called these previously so called 'untouchables' - Harijans - which means 'children of God, which in modern times has changed to be collectively known as ‘Dalits’, which means 'the broken and crushed ones'! This seems so apt!
We are dedicated to serving these people with compassion based and planned health care and all education, which is the key to both health & their eventual upliftment in society; based on the vision of our Founder Frans Baartmans MHM.
To this end we have formed a Trust called 'Ashray' Trust. To protect those ideals for perpetuity.
The word 'Ashray' is not easily translated into English, since in Hindi it has so many connotations. Perhaps the easiest is 'shelter' - hence our logo. Other meanings of Ashray can be explained as 'sanctuary', 'safety', 'the drape of a mother's sari that cover's her child', 'shelter from injustice' - to give you an understanding of why we have picked this name for the building that houses our Health Centre and our School.
We have a small but fully committed and dedicated staff who understand and are inspired by the same motives to serve our people. Indeed -some of our staff members are themselves residents of Nagwa who have been recipients of Francis Baartman's inspiration and benevolence since their childhood and now desire to 'give back' to their community what they themselves have learned. It is in this spirit that we call ourselves the Ashray family when referring to staff matters, or when choosing new people to join us in our ventures.
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Aims & Objectives of 'Ashray'
1] Primary health care for the inhabitants of Nagwa & the immediate surrounding area.
2] Special emphasis made on maternity & child care up to the age of 5 years. This includes free ante-natal care , as well as a clinic & place to be delivered of their child in the Clinic by a trained midwife /doctor. It also includes free transportation to a specialist hospital should complications occur.
3]Health , hygiene & social education for the same.
4]Awareness programmes for women regarding relevant law& their rights, value of education , especially for the girl child.
5] Where appropriate, obtaining funds through appeal to separate donors or sponsors for such individual cases e.g.. People who need expensive medical care , sponsoring of certain children for further studies etc.
6] Basic primary schooling for all children, again with emphasis on the girl child. Extra efforts are made to educate parents [see 4] to send all their children to school, & where necessary material or monetary help extended .
7] Practical training & assistance with further study plans for the youths of the area.
8] We are strictly secular & aspire to raise awareness of the most neglected of society that they are not only an equal part of the human family, but have a duty to give back & pass on to others the same message. |
More information can be found on www.ashraytrust.org
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