About Ashraya
Ashraya means shelter. We started with lunch.
In 2019 a retired headmistress and two cooks fed 60 children from a borrowed kitchen in Hebbal, because the children in her old school were fainting before noon.
Today the same kitchen serves 6,400 plates every school day. Around it we have grown seven more programmes — girls' scholarships, urban forests, clean water, women's livelihoods, health camps, elder care and community libraries — each with a published cost per unit of help, and an audit every year.
Our story
Six years, one kitchen at a time
- 2017Four friends, one borrowed kitchen
Ashraya starts cooking lunch for 120 children at two Hebbal schools.
- 2019Our own kitchen in Hebbal
A central kitchen and two vans take us to 18 schools and 2,000 children.
- 2020The first scholarships
Forty girls, forty bicycles, and an evening learning centre in Kattigenahalli.
- 2021A forest on a school ground
Our first Miyawaki forest — 1,200 saplings planted by 300 volunteers in a morning.
- 2023Water, health and elders
Filters in 19 villages, monthly health camps and a weekly visit for 320 elders.
- 20266,400 lunches a day
38 partner schools, 860 scholars and fourteen urban forests.
In their words
Parents, teachers, donors
“I visited the kitchen expecting a photo opportunity and left with flour on my shirt. You can see exactly where the money goes.”
“Our team of forty planted a forest in four hours. Three years later we went back and it was taller than us.”
“The 80G receipt arrives before I've closed the payment window. That alone makes me give here every month.”
“My daughter was the first girl in our lane to finish Class 12. Now she tutors at the learning centre on Saturdays.”
“Well-run drives, clear instructions, real work. The lake clean-up is now a monthly ritual for our family.”
“The head teacher told us attendance on Mondays went from the worst day of the week to the best. That's the lunch.”
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The team
The people who answer the phone
