Working alongside and supporting our partners

As a relatively new charitable organisation, our approach is to support the work of non-profit making, charitable organisations, such as An Initiative Touch Your Soul (AITYS), whose objectives are aligned to ours and who fulfil our criteria.

An Initiative Touch Your Soul (AITYS) - founded 2012 Providing education sponsorship for children, infrastructure support for schools in selected regions and free medical camps for the villagers.

EDUCATION

Education Sponsorship

Poverty is a phenomenon that is unfortunately complexly woven into the socio-economic fabric in Uttarakhand.

With farming no longer considered a profitable livelihood in rural regions, most male breadwinners migrate to bigger cities to earn a living. They leave behind children, old grandparents incapable of employment, or lone women who struggle to support their household.

This has dire effects on student retention in secondary schools.

According to the Uttarakhand Human Development report (2017-2018), an alarming 38% of middle school students were reported to have dropped out, with 25% citing “supporting their families for livelihood” as their reason for quitting.

Furthermore, in 2018 it was reported that 11% of drop outs in Uttarakhand were due to the unaffordability of school fees. When children reach ninth grade and are required to pay fees, parents predominantly opt for them to discontinue school.

Girls in particular bear the brunt, as increased domestic chores force them to leave.

This is where our initiatives become essential.

AITYS’ WORK

The sponsorship of a child’s secondary education in the Pauri Garhwal district of Uttrakhand is a primary focus of AITYS’s work.

When a child reaches ninth grade, they are eligible to apply for our sponsorship programme. Applications that meet a predefined eligibility criteria are carefully vetted by the staff at government schools and AITYS volunteers.

Sponsorship cheques are then handed out to students during our field visits, where AITYS meet with parents and children to emphasize the importance of completing a secondary education, and its potential to enable better life opportunities.

These conversations often reveal stories of struggle undertaken by children, who are able to confidently study and complete their schooling with the sponsorship provided.

Many of AITYS’ sponsored students also show exemplary potential for furthering studies, but feel constrained due to financial hardship. Every year, AITYS has stepped in to sponsor college and vocational training for some of our promising students.

AITYS also support the well-being of children by providing school supplies: tracksuits, t-shirts, shoes, socks, sweaters, and carry bags to students. To inculcate the idea of sustainable plastic-free living, students also receive steel lunchboxes and water bottles. This also helps protect the beautiful local terrain from unnecessary waste.

According to the Secretary of State Education of Uttarakhand (The New Indian Express, 14th Oct, 2020), in Pauri Garhwal the secondary school dropout rates decreased to 7.79% in 2018 (which is also lowest in the state), thereby validating our work over the years.

AITYS currently supports 40% of higher secondary schools in this region.

HEALTH

Free Medical Camps

Remote rural areas in Uttrakhand lack the hospitals and medical centers found in bigger cities such as Dehradun, Rishikesh and Srinagar; even basic medical facilities are scarce. With most male breadwinners migrating to cities for work, families are left with little steady income.

This makes medicines and treatment almost impossible to access and afford.

People in rural areas commonly suffer from skin infections, digestion problems (owing to unfiltered groundwater and poor nutrition) and common ailments such as cough, cold and fever. Almost everyone experiences aches and pains as they may walk for miles on difficult mountain terrains and broken paths to earn a living each day. Children report lack of energy as families face difficulty in affording proper nutritious meals. For the aged, blurry eyesight and joint aches are the biggest problems.

OUR WORK

AITYS began its ‘seva’ in Uttarakhand with free medical camps. Our first medical camp in 2012, was organised at a bus stop with a single table.

As a result of sustained efforts, AITYS is now able to set up multiple assistance counters within government school compounds, catering to more than 500 people each visit.

The medical care provided includes health check-up by a physician, distribution of non-prescription medicines along with blood pressure and sugar level tests.

Each camp is planned months in advance. This includes meticulous resource planning, scheduling, procurement, coordination and logistics. AITYS’ representatives in villages help spread the word well in advance, and camps take place for multiple days. This ensures that more can benefit, as many travel a distance of about 2-3 hours to reach the camps due to the sheer rurality of the area.

During these camps, in addition to analyzing the overall health of villagers, AITYS also analyses their socio-economic situation and school infrastructure. AITYS identify areas for improvement, which allows us to create further initiatives customised to have maximum impact.

One such endeavor, the ‘Multi-Vitamin Project’, proved extremely successful. During the camps our doctors discovered that the growth and immunity level in children had greater scope for improvement. On their advice, AITYS initiated a sponsor funded pilot program (CSR by Sarita Handa) to provide multi-vitamins regularly to students. As a result, teachers reported an improvement in the general well-being of children, leading to better attendance and attention span. After this success, multi-vitamin doses were introduced in students’ daily routine. 4250 multi-vitamins bottles were distributed across 17 schools in 2019-2020.

COVID-19

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, medical camps were not conducted in 2020-2021.

Despite this, AITYS worked hard to ensure our people in Pauri Garhwal get plenty of support to weather this difficult time. Thanks to the generosity of our patrons and donations received, AITYS was able to support 1663 families with over Rs. 84 lakhs of Covid Relief funds. Approximately 5000 (N-95 and 3-ply) masks were also provided to school students & staff, ensuring that they remained protected while attending classes.

INFRASTRUCTURE

School Development

Even though the Pauri District and its surrounding areas have an adequate network of government schools, they have minimal infrastructure and most are in urgent need of major improvements.

Key concerns that need to be addressed include crammed classrooms, lack of building maintenance, inadequate furniture, poorly stocked libraries, neglected sanitary systems and an absence of technical support.

OUR WORK

In 2016 AITYS began launching several pilot programs, to address the aforementioned problems.

With limited funds and a careful analysis of each school’s needs, audio-visual aids, computers and library books were donated to pilot schools. After assessing the impact of the donated items on student learning, AITYS expanded its outreach to more schools.

The resulting success has been extremely encouraging. Projectors and computers were provided to schools to set up e-learning rooms, where teachers and students actively use audio-visual aids for lessons. Healthy reading habits have also been inculcated through the wide variety of books donated, which have helped upgrade libraries. Overall, this has had the effect of making learning and the idea of receiving education more attractive.

Infrastructure support was given to schools for general repair and maintenance of facilities. AITYS is happy to inform that under the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan and with the help of our sponsors, we are also setting up or upgrading toilets in schools.

Moving forward, AITYS intends to continue upgrading school infrastructure by improving technology, donating more books and developing extracurricular activities including sports.

AITYS’ mission is to make school environments more engaging and productive, where students enjoy learning. AITYS want children to look forward to going to school.