Aspire to Inspire

Here’s the thing – children outgrow stuff, almost faster than you can buy them – getting rid of stuff is never as quick as you accumulate.  What doesn’t occur to most people (mainly the ones who can actually read this) is that there’s a huge, huge portion of humanity in our country alone who have none of the comforts or the ease of living that is prevalent in middle-class India today.

The Ashoka Tree, however, exists purely because of this – the ever-widening gap between those of us who ‘have’ clothes, books and toys and those who ‘have-not’.  At The Ashoka Tree, we connect two sides of the multifaceted Indian community to ensure that people who have ‘more than enough’ are willing to donate for others can reach a stage where they could actually ‘have enough’.  We want to connect people who want to help, with those who really need it.

What we really do, is collect donations of ‘gently-used’ or unused clothes, books and toys and distribute them in institutions and homes around rural India where, most often, this is the first set of alternate clothes these children will then own.


We aspire to inspire.  At The Ashoka Tree, we hope our actions ultimately inspire greater reactions across the country.  Whether a part of our team at The Ashoka Tree or just a happy human – let your actions today 'aspire to inspire'.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Angels on Earth #ChennaiRains

Image
Chennai’s floods have taught us a lot.   While it’s reminded us, in developing countries especially, that there’s a reason cities are planned a certain way and that nature or climate change is not something you can ever take lightly, its also taught us a whole load of other lessons. Agreed, our country’s governing body is certainly not one of the best, our corporations are not the worlds’ finest and truck-loads of relief material have had trouble entering the city.   However, what has turned up trumps is, beyond all this, the feeling of solidarity that all of us Indians have had towards one another.   The belief that there still exist angels among us here on earth.   That a community working together saves more lives than a million individuals on their own.   We’ve had Sikhs servehot meals from Gurdwaras  and  Muslim organizations quietly sending in volunteers to clean temples as well.   The citizens of Chennai have stood up for each other, helping distribute relief material,
Read more

A Crayon in Time

Image
Every crayon saved is a crayon shared. The team at Stepping Stones, Global Public School, Kochi  has sure given us a lot to smile about this time of the year. Every leftover crayon, every eraser, every notebook and every pencil was saved and shared. This helped The Ashoka Tree make some pretty neat stationery kits for over a 100 children in Wynad, North Kerala. You've Spread More Smiles.
Read more

Omana Teacher's Anganwadi

Image
- Lisa Susan Abraham,  Intern, The Ashoka Tree The irony lies in the name of two established institutions of Cochin and the work they intend to do. Going through the websites of Greater Cochin Development Authority (GCDA) and Lions Club one can easily get a beautiful image of the ‘ideal city’ work in progress. But the question is, who is the target audience? The city one hopes Cochin will be in a decade or two clearly depends on the children we educate today. Omana Teacher’s Anganwadi in Kadavanthra is fairly big, in comparison to most of the others, and spacious with around 23 children in attendance. Neatly dressed, in uniforms provided by the Lions Club, this anganwadi was built by the Lions club for free on GCDA land. “I can't recall any instance where we were asked to pay any rent as such” says Omana teacher, 54 years old. Having served for over 35 years as an Anganwadi teacher, she is thankful to both the GCDA and Lions Club for those three decades.  However, in th
Read more