Help children go to school, in India

My name is Traysiah Spring and I was recently a volunteer in Rishikesh, India at Parmarth Niketan Ashram. I worked with an amazing spiritual leader - Sadhvi Bhagawati Saraswati. She is an American-born, Stanford graduate with a PhD in psychology, who has lived at the Ashram for the last 25 years. Her guru, HH Pujya Swami Chidanand Saraswatiji, is one of India’s most renowned and beloved spiritual masters. Sadhviji is passionate about empowerment and equality, devoting so much of her time to children and women and their daily struggles just to survive. She founded the Divine Shakti Foundation, that focuses on helping to uplift the lives of these women and children.  

During my time in India, we went to a severely impoverished neighborhood - the largest slum in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand - where hundreds of families live in a village of tarp tents. We discovered  that many of the children in this village do not go to school. Through the Divine Shakti Foundation (DSF), Sadhviji is committed to helping make sure that these underprivileged children get an education, and that their mothers get vocational training to enable them to rise above poverty.

At this time, these women collect wood from trees and sell it for firewood; the men, sadly, are often alcoholics who contribute nothing to the family or are simply daily wage workers, barely earning enough to sustain their families.

DSF is committed to getting school buses and busing the children to school, as well as, starting a new center for these children and women near the slum, so they can easily walk to the facility together.  In addition to the education for the children and training for the women, the center will also offer free tutoring in the evenings for those children who ARE already in school but are struggling to keep up.

DSF is already running free children’s schools and women’s empowerment and vocational training centers in  the Himalayan region, as well as Life Skills programs for adolescents and empowerment  programs for young girls.  It also holds free medical and health care camps in areas like this slum and so many other disadvantaged areas in the Himalayan foothills.

I am starting this GoFundMe account to support  Sadhviji and the Divine Shakti Foundation in getting this program off the ground.

By supporting this effort, you will be directly affecting  hundreds of children's lives, helping them to rise above their circumstances and become empowered members of society, who can contribute to a better world.

For more information on Sadhviji and the foundation - Divine Shakti Foundation - please go to      - https://www.divineshaktifoundation.org/