“Empowering underprivileged Elderly Citizen"

Many members of our society are often denied the dignity and honor that they once claimed as the breadwinner of their respective households. These ailing individuals are now liability to their relatives’ or children’s lives. Aastha aims to help these people gain the right to live in a dignified manner again. As a result, Aastha ensures necessities such as food, clothing, medicinal supplies, and shelter for these people, so they can survive with respect and are no longer forced to impose on their families.

As such, Aastha has taken responsibility of elderly citizens in Rupganj, Narayanganj and Kushtia.

Education is a critical instrument for bringing social, economic changes and a durable integration of people, particularly those ‘excluded’ from the mainstream of any society. To address this challenge, Aastha has taken responsibility of 160 children. These children are deprived of elementary means. Parents are living on daily-wage labor, having different makeshift shops, working as domestic maids etc. With this meager income, the parents are not able to pay the school fees and sometimes they are not even considering sending their children to schools because of the inability to finance their education. Aastha’s mission is to provide a “Life Changing Journey”. no matter what the circumstances are. Children can and will work hard if they know that someone in their life is supporting them. Without this support, many kids genuinely begin to believe that they won’t succeed in school, or even life. Aastha has adopted children from Gawair in Dhakkhin Khan, Uttara. Adopted mentally challenged children from Rupganj, Dhaka.

Success stories: 5 girls are now studying, 3 girls in architectural engineering and 2 girls in mechanical engineering. 1 boy in automobile engineering and 1 boy in radiology department of BIRDEM.

Aastha is also working towards the betterment of the mentally challenged and physically handicapped children. Often, families of this group of people are unable to afford proper care and medication for their needs. Aastha recognizes the pain and helplessness that both the sufferers and their families must endure. In our efforts to improve the well-being of such people with disabilities, we have adopted 15 children under our wing in Rupganj. This is just a start, and we aim to ensure more children like them are not deprived of their rights to live.

We have adopted 15 children under our wing in Rupganj.

Currently we are working in Chor Kolkondo and Chor Binbiniya in Rangpur, we are working on water, hygine and sanitation. There are 1250 families currently residing in these villages but unfortunately they don’t have proper toilets, drinking water, school, Masjid, graveyard. These are the most basic rights for a human being. Most of the women go to river bank early in the morning for their natural call. It is indeed an unfortunate situation for them. This is not the only area where women’s are suffering largly. They take bath in the same river where their domestic animals also doing the same. They are also drinking the same water from the river.

Women empowerment can be defined to promoting women’s sense of self-worth, their ability to determine their own choices, and their right to influence social change for themselves and others. Aastha Trust has taken the initiative to promote education, skills development training and professional development for women.

• We have started with a Cutting and Tailoring course for women in Kolkondo, Kushtia and Dhaka.
• We have targeted to provide cows to 100 women per year. This will provide them an opportunity to earn money by selling milk.

We have addressed COVID-19 pandemic by providing victims food, medicine, hygiene kits and other essentials. Many people can’t afford to buy food as they have lost their jobs because of restaurants, small boutiques and various other businesses closing down. From the end of March, we have started funding a program to help such people with our own fund and donations from friends and colleagues. Initially we had distributed food and hygiene kits to Gawair slum in Dakkhin Khan, Uttara, Badda, Shahjadpur and Mirpur. We have given food bags to rickshaw pullers, daily wage earner, roadside shop owners, maids, physically challenged people, single mothers, carpenters, tailors etc. who are not earning any money since March 2020. Orphan feeding: In April, this campaign extended to different parts of Bangladesh. We have sent food bags to Barisal, Kushtia, Cumilla, Dohar and Lalmonirhat as well as Mymensigh Brothel and to third genders in Uttara. We have also, given food bags to bus drivers and their helpers in Kallyanpur. In July, we distributed food bags among 4,000 families (Approx. 20,000 people) at Kolakonda Union, Gongachora, Choshpura, Dhusmara dip, Kuthir para, Araji Horisshor, Lakhitari and Bhelarpur in Rangpur and Lalmonirhat. We are feeding 300 orphans thrice a week at Kushtia, Char Kolkondo, Rangpur and Dhaka. These orphanages don’t have enough fund to feed the children proper meals. They are getting only two spoons of rice and one spoon of lentil for lunch and dinner. Aastha Trust has come forward to serve them a healthy and filling lunch thrice a week.

Bangladesh has been hit by one of the worst floods of the decade. The ongoing floods have affected 5.4 million people and damaged over 1.27 million houses. Furthermore, it has washed away around 360,000 cattle and poultry and affected over 159,000 hectares of cropland causing a loss of BDT 4.96 Bn. As a result, many people have become paupers overnight after losing all means of livelihood. Considering these occurrences, Aastha Trust has given vegetable seed bags and rice/paddy seeds to 2500 farmers in Northern Bangladesh. This initiative has enabled the farmers to get out of the poverty cycle and become financially independent again. In 2021, we distributed 2000 dry food bags to the people who are in dire need of food. We have distributed 1000 packets of Iftar every day amongst rickshaw pullers, beggars, roadside small vendors, slum people and many more.

Aastha is always in need of funds to expand its programs and sustain our existing ones. For this purpose, with the help of duck farming and fisheries, Aastha can earn capital to fund our existing programs. Not only does this create funding for the programs but it also teaches the community to be self-sufficient and develop their own programs as well. This is a sustainable form of earning as the ducks and fish reproduce at a high rate thus also creating employment opportunities within the community.