Give children the essentials they need to survive

Recent highlights

Visits, gatherings and shared milestones

On 4 February 2019 the Asha team welcomed Robert Johanson, Chairman of Bendigo and Adelaide Bank Limited and of AFOA, to Asha’s Chanderpuri slum community. The Global Asha Meet 2019 was held at Asha’s Mayapuri slum centre with participants from the UK, Northern Ireland, the USA and Australia.

Australian Friends of Asha for Slums is a community of supporters who believe that a child growing up in a slum in India deserves the same essentials as any other child: clean water, nutrition, healthcare, and a safe place to learn. The organisation works alongside Asha India, raising awareness of the daily realities faced by families living in dense, informal settlements where services are scarce and poverty is generational.

The central message on the homepage is simple and urgent: give children the essentials they need to survive. A monthly donor provides lifesaving emergency care, delivered every day of the year, to children who could die without it. Recurring support is what allows clinics, ambulances and outreach teams to plan ahead, keeping lights on long after a single contribution has been spent.

The work reaches across more than ninety-one slums in India, and it is sustained by people who rarely see the communities they help. That distance is bridged through fundraising events, volunteer gatherings, online campaigns and storytelling. Australian friends of Asha use these moments to translate distant suffering into tangible support, encouraging donors to understand where their money travels and why it matters.

Awareness is as important as funding. By sharing news, events and accounts of life in the slums, the organisation builds a constituency of informed supporters who can advocate for neglected children. The emphasis is not on charity as spectacle, but on long-term partnership: supporting and raising awareness of the important work done by Asha India, so that the organisation on the ground can keep delivering.

Asha India was created by people who saw a need that would not be met by ordinary systems, and that founding spirit still shapes the movement today. Living directly within the communities it serves, the organisation employs local staff and workers who understand the language, the culture and the daily rhythms of each settlement, allowing interventions to be precise rather than generic.

The site reflects that seriousness through a restrained, editorial design. A deep navy background anchors the page, warm full-bleed photographs of community life provide contrast, and off-white text overlays keep everything readable. Accent tones of muted terracotta and gold are drawn from the imagery itself, so colour feels sourced from the places being described rather than applied decoratively.

Typography throughout is cleanly sans-serif, with generous letter-spaced headings and light, small body copy that reads comfortably against dark panels. Large vertical spacing between full-width photo and text blocks creates a calm rhythm, guiding the eye downward in stages. Sections alternate between solid colour and photography instead of being separated by lines or shadows, a quiet luxury-brochure approach.

Components are deliberately minimal: a simple circular chat bubble icon, thin-lined outline symbols in the footer, and flat rectangular photo blocks with no rounded corners or heavy borders. Nothing shouts for attention, which suits a site whose purpose is to invite reflection rather than to sell. Every visual decision keeps the children and the communities at the centre of the story being told.

Giving is presented as a straightforward step: donate online, and consider a monthly gift so that emergency care can continue every day of the year. Donations over a modest threshold to the Australian Friends of Asha for Slums Overseas Development Gift and Relief Fund are tax deductible, and the organisation continues to host events, fundraisers and discussions about the future of its strategies for supporting children.