American India Foundation
 | |
| Founder | President Bill Clinton, Rajat Gupta, Victor Menezes[1] |
|---|---|
| Type | Charitable trust |
| Focus | Education, Livelihood, Public Health |
| Location | |
Area served | India |
| Website | [www.aif.org] |
The American India Foundation (AIF, founded 2001) is a nonprofit American development organization "charged with the mission of accelerating social and economic change in India." The AIF has invested in over 100 Indian non-governmental organizations while raising over $46 million since its inception. It is one of the largest American organizations supporting development work in India.
AIF awards grants to education, livelihood, and public health projects in India – with emphases on elementary education, women’s empowerment, and HIV/AIDS, respectively.[2] AIF has a program called Digital Equalizer which attempts to bridge the digital divide by providing computers, internet access and training to under-resourced Indian schools.[3] It also funds the Service Corps Fellowship, which sends skilled young Americans to work with NGOs in India for a ten month period. The fellowship helps exchange technical skills, intellectual resources and helps increase the capacity of Indian NGOs to continue their work while giving American leaders a good understanding of India.[4]
The American India Foundation was founded by a group of Indian-Americans responding to the 2001 Gujarat earthquake. Former United States President Bill Clinton serves as the Honorary Chair, and has been involved in a number of AIF events; he was asked to get involved with the group by Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in the wake of the earthquake.[1]
AIF's Emergency Response
In cases of major national disasters in India, AIF has been involved in relief and rehabilitation efforts. It has undertaken three campaigns for relief and rehabilitation:
- In 2001, after the Gujarat Earthquake
- In 2004, after the Tsunami
- In 2005, after the Kashmir Earthquake
AIF takes a multi-phased approach to disaster relief: relief, reconstruction and rehabilitation. AIF's focus is the long-term rehabilitation of communities, and it dedicates most of its resources to this phase. In Gujarat and Tamil Nadu, AIF funded organizations in the affected communities for up to three years following the earthquake so that our NGO partners could identify long-term solutions to improve the lives of people affected by disaster.[5]
Education
Strategy
AIF’s approach to grant making in the area of elementary education is premised on the following:
- It is the state’s responsibility to fulfill its constitutional mandate of free and compulsory education for all children between 6 and 14 years of age.
- The government has committed itself to the Universalisation of Elementary Education (UEE) by 2010.
AIF’s education grants program, therefore, focuses on complementing and supplementing state efforts in meeting the above commitments. It does this by working with partner NGOs that:
- Focus on the “left-out children” and find ways to ensure that such children have access to quality education, and are able to successfully complete the primary and the elementary cycle. AIF works with the following categories of children who are excluded due to a complex combination of physical and social reasons:
- children of seasonal migrants
- deprived urban children
- children of sex workers
- children with disabilities
- children living with HIV/AIDS
In all these groups, the focus is on girl children, and children of ethnic/religious minorities.
- Work on improving the quality of education, and strengthening government schools.
Currently AIF has 11 partners in education; eight in the area of seasonal migration, three in the area of deprived urban children, and two in the area of children of sex workers.
External links
References
- ^ "Long Distance Philanthropy Brings Donors Closer to Home". Retrieved 2008-20-11.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help) - ^ "AIF- Who We Are". Retrieved 2008-20-11.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help) - ^ "Accelerating Change in India by Inspiring Entrepreneurial Philanthropy in the U.S". Retrieved 2008-20-11.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help) - ^ "AIF Service Corps Fellowship". Retrieved 2008-20-11.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help) - ^ "AIF Emergency Response". Retrieved 2008-20-11.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help)
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