Asha for Education

One of the main goals is to eliminate second generation trafficking of the children, and make sure they are given access to rightful education, counseling and general awareness. A more comprehensive understanding of Prerana's objectives can be obtained either from Prerana's website, or from project proposal links on the right, for example this one.

Prerana, a non-profit civil society organization, started working in the Kamathipura red light areas of Mumbai in 1986. It was formally registered as Prerana in 1990. Currently, it is working in the red light areas of Kamathipura, Falkland Road and Vashi Turbhe red light areas with extension and outreach activities in the Bhiwandi red light are of Thane district.

Prerana works with essentially a rights based approach. Besides protecting the children of the prostituted women of the red light areas from some of the dangers of sexual assaults and contracting HIV infection it offers them growth and developmental opportunities as a matter of right. It also works for the rights and dignity of the women of the red light areas and runs comprehensive care and support services on 24X7 basis. Prerana is one of the first few organization taking care of HIV positive persons mainly the prostituted mothers and their mothers at a time when the professional medical doctors in government hospitals were reluctant to examine them.

More details here and here.

Also check out!

[NEW! July '09] New photos from Prerana (Credits: Andrew Aitchison, UK)

[NEW! May '09] Prerana is featured in "State" (Monthly magazine of the US Department of State.)

[NEW! Sept '09] Prerana is the recipient of the 2009 STARS Impact Award in the Child Protection category. Each Award provides US$100,000 of unrestricted funding as well as consultancy support tailored to meet the needs of the recipients.

Previous stewards' contact info.:
Nayana Shah (Asha UIUC) - nayanaphysics (at) yahoo.com
Kaushik Raghunathan (Asha UIUC) - kaushikr (at) gmail.com