AASRA - Because They Need Us

This year, the festival of lights was celebrated with great gaiety and joy in the workplaces of AASRA. The Diya project initiative of AASRA was a great success this Diwali and played a small yet significant part in lighting up the lives of the people in need. It was celebrated in six workplaces of AASRA which are sector 6, sector 21, sector 5, OSAP, Jagda and Khalsa involving enthusiastic children and equally enthusiastic members.   The first and foremost thing that marked the beginning of Diwali celebration was the distribution of profit made in Diya project among the women who made the diyas in Sector-6, OSAP and Sector-21. Diwali is incomplete without crackers and sweets, and keeping this in mind, sweets and crackers were distributed among the children of all the workplaces. The members were also fed sweets at the end as a happy Diwali from ...

New clothes, sweets, crackers. Diwali is a time of joy and celebration. But there are many who aren't fortunate enough. For the poor, buying things during festivals can be nothing but a far fetched dream. We at AASRA believe that there's no greater joy than the joy of serving the poor and the less fortunate ones. Each year, we create employment opportunities for dozens of poor women during Diwali, so that they have enough money to celebrate the festival of lights with their families. DIYA PROJECT is our greatest and most awaited project every year, for which every volunteer of AASRA puts in a lot of effort (and love). We buy diyas from a wholesale seller, and buy decorative items such as glitter powder, paints etc. We go to three workplaces and ask the women there to decorate these Diyas for us. Our volunteers roam around the campus of NITR, visiting faculty and students and taking orders for diyas from them. These decorated diyas are sold for a profit, and the profits are g...

Guru Nanak Public School, Khalsa has been a partner of AASRA for a long time. We’ve been teaching kids of neighboring slums at GNPS for quite some time now. A few of our alumni members had the idea of using GNPS’s infrastructure for teaching children of Sector-21 and OSAP colony, to maximize our efficiency and also to benefit other children in nearby areas who weren’t in our former workplaces. AASRA’s members had a meeting with the school management body of GNPS in March, 2016. There were some obstacles during the initial phase, as some of the board members were skeptical about giving their infrastructure to be used for teaching kids of nearby localities, due to former issues with people of the naya bazaar area. With a little help from Mr. Kulwinder Singh from GNPS, who has been very supportive of AASRA and a series of discussions and meetings, we finally were able to convince the management. Now, you’ll be happy to know that we have formally begun teaching a...

AASRA, the social service wing of NITR has been working from years to uplift the poor. Our volunteers go around Rourkela and teach underprivileged children. But success isn’t restricted to classroom scoring. Many of these kids are left without jobs after their 12 th . Many are known to leave studies after their 12 th , find petty jobs and work on a wage, or get married. That is when we realized that we needed something to help these kids secure a bright future. The Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana(PMKVY) is an initiative by the Government of India under the Ministry of Skill Development and Enterpreneurship. It aims to prepare today’s youth in Industry-relevant skill training that will help them in securing a better livelihood. To help some children who had fewer resources, we at AASRA identified a few kids from our workplaces who could be potential benefactors of this program. Since we go around a lot of places in Rourkela, the search wasn’t difficult for us. We sat down wi...

 Each year several thousands of patients during surgeries or transplantations require blood transfusions.Unfortunately a large chunk of this group succumbs to the unavailability of the compatible blood type in the blood banks. Hence the need for blood donation is of humongous importance. Not known to many,that the blood donated by a single person can be utilized for at least three patients, since three major components of blood can be successfully derived out of it. This shows the high relevance of blood donations in saving several priceless lives. In an ingenuous attempt to provide assistance in saving the lives of patients in need of blood, AASRA organized a Blood Donation Camp on 18th March in collaboration with the CWS Hospital. The camp began at about 10AM, with volunteers swarming into the hospital premises on the basis of the information circulated amongst the students almost a week before.The volunteers were first asked to fill up a form where they provided certain basi...

Abiding by the ethos of modern development,  AASRA came up with an idea of exposing the kids of our workplace to the concept and culture of Science Exhibitions. The core blueprint of this plan was to divide the entire lot of students in our workplaces into teams of 3-4 headed by a team member. After the projects were finalized and the required budget for each project was allocated, the titanic task of preparing the models began in full swing. The team members visited the workplaces to make sure the students understand the underlying concepts of each project that they would represent in the exhibition.  Decentralising all the tasks like arranging the transportation, food and refreshment, printing of ID Cards and Invitation Cards was done to ensure the smooth organization of the event. This event was to be a part of the Institute’s gigantic technical festival INNOVISION, the largest of its kind in Eastern India. The event was immense...

In an attempt to provide the taste of self-employment and in an effort to inculcate within the people that harnessing their time and potential can make them financially independent, AASRA came up with a unique concept –“Diya Project”. We provided the members of our designated workplaces with the raw materials required for making decorative diyas. Wax was given the shape of Diyas with a wick to light it up. It was then decorated with glittering colours and made as attractive as possible. All this work was done by men and women of our workplaces, who sincerely worked diligently. Their commendable hard work and sincerity combined with their unflinching commitment and conformity to complete the tasks within the allotted time span is a lesson worth learning by each one of us. All this was in a near-completion mode by the end of the Durga Puja Vacation. Just after the vacation ended, the herculean task of taking orders for selling the diyas began. All the members activel...

“Cleanliness is next to Godliness” is a saying that’s instilled into every school going child from a young age. But what about those children, who haven’t had the opportunities and the understanding to realise the various areas of life this applies to? That’s where Aasra’s initiative comes into picture. A whole week was dedicated to encourage and create awareness about the importance of hygienic conditions. In the workplaces frequented by Aasra members, interactive skits were performed over a span of two days, elaborating on personal as well as surrounding hygiene. On the first day, the drive was initiated and plays were enacted in sector 5 and 6, this day was accomplished successfully, positively affecting a multitude of people.  The second day saw the enthusiastic children of OSAP involving with the members and eagerly learning how maintaining basic hygiene can prevent diseases, just by observing certain practices which may be as simple as turning away when one has to s...