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Welcome to the Ashray Charitable Trust (ACT)! We are a social organisation in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, dedicated to empowerment through education. We work with 3000 or so people of the severely underprivileged Dalit community in Varanasi and the surrounding area.

The first focus of ACT is the health of the residents who face problems like overcrowding, malnutrition, and diseases like tuberculosis. To treat everyday ailments, ACT runs a free walk-in clinic open six days a week, and once a week, Dr. Bhatnagar comes in for free consultations, generously donating his time. To help prevent illness from occurring we also give our school children nutritious chyawanprash and milk each day and soap each month (pictured below).

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Beyond meeting immediate needs, ACT is working for a brighter future. In our K-5 school, we teach approximately 70 children, not only about the core academic subjects, but about the essential topics of cleanliness, health, civic duty, and the environment. ACT’s evening coaching classes, serving students in classes 6-12, offer help with both schoolwork and state examination preparation. For women of all ages, ACT’s sewing classes teach a skill that is useful both for housework and earning wages.

For all of the work it does, ACT depends on generous donations of time and money by its volunteers and donors. Take a minute to read more about ACT, our projects, and our community, and then if you are able, please

ACT NOW!

Read about what’s new at ACT!