ASHRAYA is a non-profit organization based in the US, established in 1991 with an aim to provide assistance to the physically challenged and rural communities.. ASHRAYA is an NGO providing assistance in education, vocational training & income generation to physically challenged & rural student communities in India. ASHRAYA is a non-profit organization based in the US, established in 1991 with an aim to provide assistance to the physically challenged and rural communities in India in the areas of education, vocational training and income generation. Our focus is on various challenges such as visual, aural, mobility, learning and rural poverty; and on different age groups, i.e. education for children, vocational training for teenagers and income generation for adults. We strive to use assistive technologies wherever feasible so as to increase sustainability and leverage. ASHRAYA is registered in the state of New Jersey (ASHRAYA Corp) and obtained tax exempt status from IRS (EIN 52-1791311) on Oct 14th, 1992. In the initial years, ASHRAYA provided services to select big and established India-based welfare organizations chiefly working in the disabilities sector such as NAB (Bombay), NAB (Chennai), BPA (Ahmedabad), Mobility India (Bangalore) and MP Blind Welfare Association (Indore). Over the last 10 years, our focus has shifted to providing services to smaller and more rural-based organizations. The following are the services we provide for free:1) Build and manage libraries in rural government schools focused on activity based learning2) Establish and run science clubs and nature clubs in rural government schools3) Fund innovative educational programs such as mobile science labs4) Establish and fund income generation and vocational training programs for the visually, physically and mentally challenged5) Supply educational aids for end users (e.g. educational materials and kits for rural children, braille typewriters, low vision aids, speech enhancement devices)6) Supply assistive-technologies and equipment towards the followinga)Talking Book production centers for the visually challenged (duplicating machines, recording systems)b) Centers of education (e.g. PCs, scanners, screen reader and speech recognition software for the visually challenged; mobile science labs for rural schools)