This is worthwhile we think, and we hope all of you will support AIC and vote for them (read on!) I recently graduated from Duke Law School and am writing to ask for your support for the nonprofit organization that my wife co-founded nearly five years ago as a college freshman, the Ashraya Initiative for Children (AIC). I first met my wife when I visited Pune, India to serve as a volunteer with her organization. I now serve as a Director of the organization and will be moving to Pune with my wife and daughter in August after I take the bar exam to live there for a year and work on our programs. AIC works with some of the most underprivileged children in all of India, many of whom come from extremely impoverished backgrounds with little or no access to healthcare, education, and other basic human needs. Initially, the organization solely focused on providing a home, food, education, and family environment for a small number of orphaned, abused, and neglected children who needed it the most. That initiative, our Residential Program, is now the permanent home for twelve children, ranging in age from 3 to 17. I consider these kids to be part of my own family and expect to always be a part of their lives and vice versa. Two years ago, after deciding that we needed to do more to help a larger number of people in the slum community, we opened our Health and Education Outreach Programs. These programs now support the education of over 200 kids in the slum and promote improved health for 700 people in the slums through education, healthcare, and community mobilization. You can get a lot more information about the work that we do and the people we serve at our website The Concord Monitor (from Concord, NH), recently published a story about our work in India which may also be of interest to you: AIC has just celebrated its fifth year anniversary. This is an exciting time both to reflect on the opportunities we have provided to hundreds of disadvantaged children in an Indian slum and look towards the significant work that remains. We have just kicked off a fundraising campaign, which will hopefully allow us to continue to make a difference in the lives of the children we work with in India and to support our ever-growing programs. We are also participating in the Chase Community Giving contest online, which gives the 200 charities that receive the most votes a share of $5,050,000, which is where I would sincerely appreciate the support of the Duke Basketball Report. As we are going to need a lot of votes to finish in the top 200, we would sincerely appreciate it if DBR readers would vote for AIC: Thank you - Eric Teasdale
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