Ashiyana means “a beautiful home”.
A home is so much more than four walls. A place where we feel protected, where we go to be comforted,
and where we know we will always belong. We constantly strive to be that safe place, that anchor in the
lives of the children and youth we work with.
It all started in 2012 when a few volunteers wanted to bring colour to the bare walls of the Umerkhadi Children’s Home. Each Sunday, children and volunteers came together to paint a large mural on the walls of the home. The most important thing we did was to simply spend time with the children, and as we did so we identified more and more opportunities for change and ways in which we could respond to the needs of the home, be it address tracing of a child or giving them immediate medical attention or “fire-fighting” in case of other emergencies.
Over time in order to fully manifest these changes and to create an environment for the children to thrive in, we felt the need to commit to working full-time, hand in hand with the Children’s Home and other government bodies and NGOs that work with it.
Ashiyana today has full-time staff that run projects with daily tasks and responsibilities as well as projects which are completely volunteer driven.