Asha Kanpur chapter was formed in 1999 by Dr. Deepak Gupta. Since its formation our chapter has executed the projects below:
Manaviya Shiksha Sanskar Sasthan (MS3)
It was established in 1998 by Dr. Deepak Gupta and Dr. Sandeep Pandey. The project was started in Mandhana, near the Indian Institute of Technology at Kanpur. This project focuses on self-reliance achieved by following a certain way of living. The objective of the project was helping children of migrant laborers with primary education, providing vocational training skills for children of migrant labor and making MS3 self-sustaining
Sankalp Special School
Sankalp Special School (formerly- Sankalp Day Care Centre) was started in January, 2007 with the aim of providing all the facilities needed by a special child (autism, behavioral problems, learning disabilities, speech/language issues, mentally challenged) under one roof in a coordinated manner, so as to bring about maximum growth in the child and make him independent as far as possible.
With time, as our students grew up, we also introduced vocational training for the children, which includes training our children to make their presence pleasant and productive, first in their homes and then in the society.
The center, which was initially started as an independent venture but since 2009 it’s running under the banner of Asha for Education and runs as a non-profit organization. The expenses incurred are met with through a monthly voluntary contribution made by the parents and through donations received from various persons or organizations. We have a dedicated staff which includes teachers, speech therapist, physiotherapist and psychologist along with the supportive staff. The staff works in a coordinated manner for the maximum benefit of the children.
Due to limitation of funds and lack of availability of trained staff to work with the special children, we are forced to compromise on the qualifications of our staff. But our existing staff exhibits a high level of dedication and a will to deliver the best and thus the results we have obtained have been very satisfying for us, as well as for the parents. As a future scope we are looking into selling non-perishable items such as jewelry etc. online.
Ek kadam project
[http://balsajag.blogspot.com/] [http://dangerschool.blogspot.com/]
Ek Kadam project is a residential hostel for the all-around development of migrant’s children run by “ASHA” Kanpur. It was started in 2006 as a model project for those migrant children who had to break their education in mid due to their parent’s profession. Parents of these children are migrant laborers, who usually migrant from other state or district to Kanpur city in search of employment but in short of employment they are forced to work at brick-field site along with their children for 6-7 months and rest of months they have to live in their home. In such a situation, the children have to break their education in mid. So, for the solution of such a problem we started a residential hostel under Ek Kadam project, which we called Apna Ghar. It was started with only nine children but now there are 44 children with us, and we are trying to give a new shape to their life.
Our vision is to develop such an environment where more and more children (boys & girls) of migrant laborers to live their childhood with full of dignity, there is not any labor work and where they are free to read or play with full enjoyment. Our mission is to not only educate the children but also cultivate instill them with confidence and qualities that they could bring a change in the life of other unprivileged children.
We provide better atmosphere with caring guidance and have seen significant growth and success among all the residents. We plan to expand the intake of children provided quality of the facilities isn’t compromised.
Support A Child
Under this project presently 8 brick kiln migrant laborers children are provided educational support. Among them 4 kids (class 1-5) have been given full educational support till they graduate while the rest 4 children are provided with assistantship for higher education. These 4 students availing higher education assistantship are Chandan Kumar (B.A., 2nd year), Mansi Kumari (B.A., 1st year), Hansraj (Polytechnic, 2nd year), Dharmendra (Polytechnic, 3rd year) and all of them studied at Apna Ghar.
We will be looking forward to providing educational support to present students as long as they plan to study and wish to enroll more students under the project.
A brief write up of the recent events and some achievements are outlined below:
Sankalp Special School
It was chosen for the Brainfeed magazine school excellence award for the year 2018-19 under the special school’s category along with 8 other schools from all over India (www.brainfeedmagazine.com).
Some of the improvements due to continuous efforts of one and all that we have seen in kids at our school are tabulated below:
- Priyanka Bansal, 26 yrs., has moderate mental retardation with motor dysfunction especially in legs with speech problem. She used to be absolutely quiet and unresponsive when she came 2 yrs. back. This was more because nobody talked to her much at home. Now she can stand and walk with support, push Abdul’s wheelchair and do some household work like cutting vegetables, rolling dough to make rotis etc. She also expresses herself through 2-3-word phrases on prompting.
- Sahil Gupta, 24 yrs., has mild mental retardation with mild Cerebral Palsy. Could read and write a little and do some arithmetic. Was going to another special school but they did not teach any practical skills. Now he can do a lot of household work like cloth folding, mending his clothes, making tea, maggi, sandwiches etc.
- Zoya, 20 yrs., has mild to moderate retardation with severe motor incoordination. She could not concentrate and had no interest in doing anything. Also, even though she had good muscle power, her functioning was very poor as her movements were not coordinated. She can now manage many gross activities like dusting, mopping floors, making bed, even though she does these slowly. She can mend her clothes and stitch on a straight line using sewing machine, though she cannot thread a needle. She doesn’t like kitchen work at all! 😄. With increasing stability in her body movements, concentration is also improving.
- Bulbul Mishra, 21 yrs., has mild retardation. She is with us since 11 yrs. She could only eat, drink and manage her toileting needs herself at that time. Now, she can manage her home kitchen work with few verbal instructions and supervision from her mother. She can also read labels on various items, read their price, handle money up to Rs. 50. She can also make a basic grocery list (knows spellings of most of the common words). Also, she had no speech when she came but now speaks small sentences, although the pitch and tone are not very normal but what she speaks is usually comprehendible.
- Bulbul Mishra, 21 yrs., has mild retardation. She is with us since 11 yrs. She could only eat, drink and manage her toileting needs herself at that time. Now, she can manage her home kitchen work with few verbal instructions and supervision from her mother. She can also read labels on various items, read their price, handle money up to Rs. 50. She can also make a basic grocery list (knows spellings of most of the common words). Also, she had no speech when she came but now speaks small sentences, although the pitch and tone is not very normal but what she speaks is usually comprehensible.
Some photographs from our recent programs are:
 Raksha Bandhan |  Independence Day celebrations | |
| Ek Kadam project Few photographs and achievements of the project are outlined below.
|  Independence Day celebrations |
. 
Ambedkar Jayanthi Youth day (Vivekanand Jayanti)
Few success stories from Apna Ghar are:
Mukesh Kumar 
He completed his education till Class 12 while staying in Apna Ghar from 2006 to 2014, and then enrolled for graduation. He was taken by Apna Kendra- supported by RV Foundation- to allow him to focus on his studies along with preparation for Azim Premji University. He also worked as a teacher in Apna Skool during his graduation, teaching kids like himself for whom education was the only tool to break away from the vicious cycle of brick-kilns. He graduated in MA (Education) programme from Azim Premji University, Bengaluru campus in 2019. Presently he is employed as a Program Officer in KMM foundation in Gujarat with a good salary.
Sonu
He also completed his graduation and got selected and joined UP police in July 2019.