CWS Identified Internships

Bal Ashram (Children’s Ashram)
Wellesley India – Varanasi

Organization Description:

Bal Ashram provides a safe home for boys who have no means to further in their lives or who are caught in an extremely dysfunctional situation with or without parents. Here, the children receive housing, food, clothing and an opportunity to receive education and guidance. Most of all, they find a home with love and care. The boys of Bal Ashram also receive business training in the Ashram’s new solar bakery, which is the only one of its kind in India. At Bal Ashram, seva, or self-less service, is the over ridding message. Not only does Bal Ashram have a comprehensive program for the boys who live at the Ashram, it also provides a day care school for local children from poor families and helps to fund a local school for poor and street children, Little Stars School, which includes an orphanage for girls.

Part of a larger international network of spiritual communities, the Ashram, functions as a school and place of inspiration to all who step on its grounds. The vision of the Ashram is to:

1. Promote brotherhood among all human beings irrespective of race, religion, caste or social status.
2. Promote the feeling of Motherly reverence towards women.
3. Create a suitable environment for young children for proper education and wholesome growth.
4. Serve the needy and neglected, helping them return to society with dignity, and educate society to accept them without discrimination.
5. Bring out the essence of true spirituality without pomp and show, and provide a secular stage for different ideologies to work together.
6. Make an active effort to eradicate the dowry system in India as well as eliminate the huge sums spent on marriage and other ceremonies, and rectify the inherent problems of the caste system.
7. Establish more Ashrams dedicated to these ideals and help other organizations of a similar nature.

Internship Description:

This internship experience is different than most other Wellesley Internship Programs. The interns will live in the beautiful and simple Bal Ashram and will experience what it means to live a life of service. All members at Bal Ashram contribute to all aspects of running the orphanage, educational program, Little Stars School, and maintaining the space. Specific projects may include designing Sunday programming for the girls of Little Stars School, providing day to day care for the boys of Bal Ashram, and various office projects. The intern will be expected to work with the program supervisors prior to her arrival in India, to find a specific project that matches her skills and interests with the needs of the organization. The more energy and open-mindedness one brings to the ashram the more they will get out of the experience.

Ideal Internship Qualification: