About - Aasraa Trust

Aasraa Trust was established in 2009, working under the Bindal bridge in Dehradun with a riverside slum community. Aasraa started with 35 children and has since impacted more than 25,000 children across 80 projects in Dehradun, Pauri Garhwal and Udham Singh Nagar districts of Uttarakhand. Currently, Aasraa impacts 11,000 children. It focuses on society’s most underserved and vulnerable children, helping them with a multifaceted approach through education, skills training, nutrition, healthcare and shelter homes. Starting with street level mobilization, Aasraa prepares children for mainstream education and transition to higher studies & skills training. Aasraa is certified by National Institute of Open Schooling and works with the Education Department of Uttarakhand to improve the quality of education at government schools. Aasraa has built shelters for orphaned, abandoned, abused and special needs children. Technology has enhanced education at all Aasraa programs, from Mobile Learning centers to Mobile computer labs.

In the past 16 years, Aasraa has reached over 25,000 children and youth and impacted the lives of thousands of families and their communities. Currently, we are catering to 11,000 children in the 3 districts of Uttarakhand – Dehradun, Udham Singh Nagar and Pauri Garhwal.

Aasraa is working with 19 government schools under an MoU with the Department of Education, Uttarakhand. This program is called the School Quality Enhancement Programme. Over 7000 children are benefiting from this initiative.

Aasraa launched 7 Mobile Learning Centres and 2 Mobile Computer Labs to reach out to children from the streets and slums and provide them with interactive e-learning classes. This program is adopted by Government of Uttarakhand (Labour Department) and implemented in 3 districts.

One of our Mobile Learning Centres has been donated by Embassy of Japan in India.

Aasraa has mainstreamed over 2000 out-of-school children into regular schools and NIOS-OBE (National Institute of Open Schooling – Open Basic Education). Aasraa is accredited to NIOS-OBE study and exam centre. Currently, there are over 500 children benefitted from this program.

Aasraa is an accredited Vocational Training Centre by the NIOS and runs 2 vocational training centres. Additionally, in 2023, Aasraa launched its own Skills Training Centre – SkillAbility empowering over 800 youth in 7 different verticals for gainful employment.

Aasraa caters to more than 300 children annually in our 4 Shelter Homes for both girls and boys. 2 of these are located in the premises of government schools under an MoU with the Education Department of Government of Uttarakhand.

Aasraa is supporting over 240 children under its Higher Education Programmme in Dehradun and Udham Singh Nagar districts of Uttarakhand.

Aasraa is part of the District Task Force against Child Labour in Dehradun and is running an Intensive Care Centre for children involved in begging in collaboration with the District Administration of Dehradun.

Aasraa is part of the advisory committee of the National Institute of Open Schooling, Regional Center Dehradun.

Aasraa’s Special Needs centre caters to over 90 children with special abilitites. We have recently started providing them with vocational training to empower them for a more idependent living.

Aasraa has received various awards for their effort in the empowerment and upliftment of the children and their families from the underserved communities of Uttarakhand.

Aasraa is the only study and exam center for Open Basic Education program (classes 3, 5 & 8) of National Institute of Open Schooling in Dehradun. This is a boon for older children who have never been a part of a formal classroom and are unable to gain entrance in their age appropriate classes.

Aasraa Trust has a team of dedicated young teachers who mentor and care for the children. Our aim is to love, nurture and educate children from socioeconomically deprived backgrounds and give them an opportunity that helps them flourish into good human beings and responsible citizens.The Trust is governed by a board of trustees with backgrounds in education, De-addiction and social work.