The American India Foundation Trust

AIF’s education programmes strive to ensure that underprivileged children from ignored regions have access to good and quality education with an equal focus on imparting life skills and 21st-century skills and preparing them for the future of India.

Its Learning and migration programme(LAMP), seeks to educate children of migrant populations who are generally on the move, by setting up schools equipped with hostels enabling the children to reside and study peacefully and complete their education. Its Digital Equaliser programme prepares low-income schools with computer centres, enabling teachers and students to gain 21st-century digital skills.

AIF believes in creating opportunities for all through its livelihood programmes. Its Market Aligned Skills Training(MAST) programme seeks to train youth in skills that are in demand in the job market. Its Ability Based livelihood Empowerment(ABLE) programme aims to ensure that people with disabilities are given equal opportunities and live dignified lives.

The MAST programme is also involved in training people with disabilities in skills demanded by the market. AIF has set up the Rickshaw Sangh to unite rickshaw pullers giving them ownership of their rickshaws. The Sangh collectively strives to better their lives enabling them to access public schemes and gain access to identity documents.

AIF’s programme to provide maternal and newborn survival services is named MANSI. It aims to strengthen the capacity of Government frontline workers like ASHA and AWW workers, to deliver effective services to mothers and newborns, create awareness in adolescent girls on sexual and reproductive health and use behaviour change communication campaigns to change mindsets towards better health and hygiene.

This fellowship programme by AIF promotes service-leadership and bilateral ties between both countries by placing young professionals from the USA in social organisations in India, to serve the communities leading to mutual learning, capacity building, leadership development and delivery of social justice.