C/O Dr. Pramod Agrawal Campuslaan 22, 7522 NP Enschede/td>
Tel	:	053 - 489 48 60(O)
		053 - 489 49 71 (R) | 06-4931 1325(M)
Email	:	p.b.agrawal@tnw.utwente.nl
Web	:	www.aadhaar.com

Aadhaar is a small non-commercial group seeded in August 1997 in the Netherlands which provided the members of Aadhar the foundation to support social activities in India. It stands for An Association for the Development of Health and Academic Awareness in Rural India. The group is registered ath the KVK Netherlands (Dossier Nummer: 08099671). The group functions on voluntary work and seeks to incur practically no costs in organisational activities.

The founders of Aadhaar who lived and worked in the west realised that compared to their colleagues in India, they often draw a larger and sometimes even disproportionate financial share from society. Knowing this and being in a position to do something, they felt the itch to actually do something constructive and contribute for a good cause. Often the intention and the will were there but the means to do it are lacking.

Aadhaar was founded in a very informal way as a common platform for sharing such feelings and for trying to put their thoughts into action. The key goal is to help the underprivileged in India, especially through:

• Education and vocational training to the underprivileged
• Provision of medical facilities to those deprived
• Women upliftment programmes
• Capacity building in rural India

To achieve these goals Aadhar support people and organisations in India already working in this field. They started with supporting one such organisation, viz. the Vivekanand Seva Mandal (VSM) from whom they receive a regular feedback. More recently Aadhar has started supporting Asha Jyoti, an NGO based in Lucknow striving to serve the mentally challenged and to make them self sufficient.

The key point to support organisations such as the VSM and Asha Jyoti is that Aadhaar has direct contact to people in charge who provide them with a regular feedback and assure them of a smooth transfer of funds to those who need it. The groups in India comprise largely of voluntary workers, most of whom devote their time for the cause either without being paid any money or take a very modest salary for their services, thus keeping the organisational costs to a bare minimum. This ensures that the contribution of the members is used fully for the cause we support without being lost in administrative tangles.