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I saw a kid outside my school in the eighth grade. Wo na umeed bhari aankhon se school ki taraf dekhta rehta tha. Like, ushe v padhne ka man tha. I observed him for 2-3 weeks and couldn’t take my mind off thinking about him. So, one day I tried to talk to him. ‘Padhte ho?’ I asked him. He didn’t reply. But I kept trying to talk with him in the upcoming days. And finally, he spoke to me. He said that his father was a labourer, his mother worked as a maid, and he begged.
His situation struck me hard. I thought, ‘Hamare desh me aise kitne bache ho sakte hai jin logo ko padhane ka mauka nahi mil pa rahi hai.’ I was privileged,lekin un bachoon ko koi nhi puchta.
During that time, my mother and maternal uncle ran an NGO. It was limited to vocational training only. So I talked to mumma, and we agreed to work towards educating underprivileged kids. And that’s when we decided on Aashray’s main motto; giving a shelter of hope to everyone.
First, we started with Chadigarh and tied hands with the government. And I can proudly say that you’ll rarely find beggars in Chandigarh. After that, we connected with Gur Asra, an orphanage. We adopted the orphan kids there and took care of everything. As time passed, we opened Pathsala and built schools near the slum areas. Now we’ve seven Pathsalas in Chandigarh.
To maintain consistency in the kids' education, we assured their parents about covering everything, such as registrations, stationery, and tuition fees. It showed results, and today we are proud to share that over the past twelve years, we’ve educated more than 5000 students through our NGO.
The next challenge was nourishment. So, we tied with the restaurants to take care of the food. Meanwhile, I also grew up. Mera Hotel Management karne ka shauk tha, lekin mere family members were like ‘Hamara bacha bawarchi nahi banega.’ So I ended up doing an MBA from ISB.
Baad me maine v jugad laga liya and opened restaurants. Right now, I’m the owner of seven organisations. So food is available easily. And I’ve pledged to donate 50% of my income towards Aashray.
We’ve expanded to 28 cities all over India with more than 5000 volunteers. And among them, we are actively operating in 21 cities. We grew majorly during COVID-19 in the cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Banglore, and Ahmedabad.
Since literacy is our central vision, we've focused on building awareness around population control. In slum areas, we’ve consulted them about using condoms and the benefits of population control. We are open to helping all. We’ve taken valuable steps in women's hygiene, LGBTQ rights, mental health, animal care, etc.
The best part is a lot of students from Aashray have become our volunteers or donors. And it means the world to us. Managing both my organisation and NGO is a huge challenge. But dil k andar aisa zeal hai ki kuch kar jana hai Bharat maa k liye. So, it’s the biggest motivation to work towards giving a shelter of hope to everyone. I hope you’ll also join my vision and support Aashray Foundation.
We are amazed to know Shane’s story. We hope you, too, join his vision.
Delhi Stories is an emerging platform to feature inspirational, motivational, relatable and beautiful stories. Do you also have an inspiring story like Shane?
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