Aarohi was founded by Oona and Sushil Sharma, a rural development specialist and a doctor, respectively in August 1992. With experience of social work in this region, they knew that life in the mountains was uncertain and difficult, but their love for this unique environment encouraged them to stay on.
Aarohi’s mission is to create development opportunities for rural Himalayan communities through quality healthcare and education, enterprise promotion, women’s empowerment, sustainable natural resource use and the revival of traditional culture. There are many programs started by Aarohi, in the field of education, health and livelihood.
Some of them are:
Aarohi Bal Sansar (ABS), began as a primary school in 1994. It is now a middle school catering to 150+ students from surrounding villages in a 7 km radius. The environment-friendly school buildings, a large playground, a 1:11 teacher-student ratio, a healthy blend of academics and co-curricular activities, creative teaching, and inputs from experts, volunteers combine to make the school a space where children can magically discover and explore their world, learn to appreciate life in all its hues. The school firmly believes that joy and fulfillment in a child’s formative years ensures development of a healthy, sensitive, and responsible individual.
Taking this a step further, Aarohi initiated the outreach program in 2016 to support and strengthen the government pre-school/primary education system in remote areas by improving teaching and learning practices.
The Hari Krishna Trivedi Memorial Fund (HKT) began with a corpus grant for education and health related work to be instituted in the village of Supai and surrounding villages in District Almora was willed to Aarohi by late Mrs Kamla Trivedi, whose husband was a native resident of the village.
Together with the Trivedi family, Aarohi conceived of a programme for providing scholarships, specifically, for young girls; delivering mobile health services and health camps; promoting computer literacy and conducting educational activities with the primary school children in Supai.
Aarohi’s state of the heart hospital, Aarohi Arogya Kendra (AAK) at Satoli supports the efforts of our community health program. It provides outpatient, inpatient, diagnostic, surgical care and outreach services. The hospital has a modern operation theatre, performing gynecological, general and reconstructive surgeries on a camp basis.
To help people earn a livelihood Aarohi started a livelihood Promotion Program that provides supplementary income and employment to people of the mountain region. Over a thousand farmers from Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh benefit from the business of apricot and peach based body care products and culinary herbs.
The NGO is definitely taking progressive step towards the upliftment of the society in different ways. If you want to become a part of this NGO, please visit https://www.aarohi.org/volunteer.php
