Ankur

Project Brief: The Ankur project sends children from the urban slums of Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad to the Ankur school located in Pune, where they receive formal education. The children come from families of varied backgrounds such as daily laborers and rag pickers.
Project Type: Formal Schools (description)
Primary Focus: children from slums (description)

Secondary Focus: other

Area: Urban
Supporting Chapter Contact: Silicon Valley
Status: Support ended.
Project Steward: Anshu Gaur
Project Partner(s): Madhuri Deshpande
Other Contacts: Guruswamy Kumaraswamy
Project Address: , c/o Mrs. Madhuri Deshpande, Fergusson College Campus,,Gate No. 1, Bungalow No. 2, Shivaji Nagar,Pune,
MAHARASHTRA  411004
Tel: 91-20-2546-2626 (Office)
Stewarding Chapter: Silicon Valley
Jan 2008Silicon ValleyUSD 10693
Sep 2006Silicon ValleyUSD 6180
Mar 2006Silicon ValleyUSD 5071
Jul 2005Silicon ValleyUSD 2175
Jun 2005Silicon ValleyUSD 3150
Jan 2005Silicon ValleyUSD 2765
Dec 2004Silicon ValleyUSD 510
Jul 2004Silicon ValleyUSD 2765
Jul 2004Silicon ValleyUSD 1

Total = $33310



Meet Rahul from the Ankur Project

Rahul lives in Pune, in Maharashtra. He is 9 years old. His father is a tailor and mother a teacher. Their family income is about Rs 1500 per month.

Rahul enjoys going to school and is currently studying in standard 3. His hobby is drawing.



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The Ankur project sends children from the urban slums of Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad to the Ankur school located in Pune, where they receive formal education. This project is in collaboration with a social organization called Swadhar in Pune. The children come from families of varied backgrounds such as daily laborers, rag pickers, sweepers, and unemployed families.

Asha supports the education of 35 children through the Support A Child program.

Swadhar has a branch called Akshardeep that runs non formal schools to help "out-ofschool" children (viz. dropouts) get back into the regular school system. Asha Zurich is supporting 10 non formal educaiton schools in the Pimpri-Chinchwad area. The Ankur project, also known as Akshardeep-Ankur is a proposal to individually sponsor at risk children from Akshardeep's schools, to integrate them into mainstream education and improve their chances of completing school. The kids are selected based on two criteria – their potential (how well they are doing in school and how motivated they are), and based on whether they might have difficulties coping with a Corporation school (children from very poor families, children who are from outside Maharashtra and cannot follow the Marathi medium of instruction in government schools).


Integration of children from slums, into mainstream education and follow through till they complete high school.

Swadhar-Pune is a registered social organization which started its Pune activities in 1995 with the main objective of helping women in distress.
Its key areas of work today include:
1. To run balwadis for the children of commercial sex workers
2. Akshardeep - a project to provide a friendly and sensitive learning environment to underprivileged children who are 'out-of-school' for some reason and to integrate them into mainstream education