About Us
OUR STORY
No child should be denied education because of poverty or geography.
An Initiative To Touch Your Soul (AITYS) is a volunteer-driven nonprofit founded by Madhu Chowdhry in 2012. We work in the remote villages of the Garhwal region of Uttarakhand — where rugged terrain, economic hardship, and limited healthcare too often keep children out of school.
What began as a small effort supporting 300 children across 4 schools has grown into a deeply rooted movement strengthening 70+ schools. Today, AITYS supports nearly 40% of all higher secondary schools in our core geography — transforming infrastructure, improving health and hygiene, and enabling students to pursue professional and college education.
WHAT WE DO
Our programs address every barrier that stands between a child and their education:
Education Aid: school supplies, weather-appropriate clothing, learning materials, and essentials that promote attendance, comfort, and confidence.
Infrastructure Development: building classrooms, safe bathrooms, science labs, smart classrooms, and playgrounds to create environments where learning can truly flourish.
Health & Hygiene: providing sanitary supplies, incinerators and undergarments, ensuring dignity and wellbeing for every child.
Professional & College Education: enabling youth to earn accredited diplomas, degrees and certifications, helping them build employable skills and break the cycle of limited opportunity.
WHY AITYS
Transparent. Grassroots. Impactful.
Registered under 12A, 80G, CSR1, and FCRA, AITYS operates with a transparent model where the vast majority of every donation goes directly to beneficiaries- not overheads.
Our unique strength is our presence on the ground. We work closely with school principals, teachers, village communities, and local mentors who ensure that each intervention is sustained, contextual, and meaningful.
At its heart, AITYS is a journey of seva - a commitment to dignity, opportunity, and lifelong education for every child in the mountains.
Vision
Mission
Ms. Madhu Chowdhry, a J.J. School of Art graduate who has lived in both the US and India, first visited Uttarakhand in 2008. What she witnessed there profoundly changed her life. The remote mountain villages were home to some of the most underserved communities in the country; children walking miles to school without basic facilities, families without access to healthcare, and entire communities limited simply by the distance from major towns and resources.
Passionate and deeply committed, Ms. Chowdhry remains involved in every aspect of AITYS’s work from fundraising and planning to multiple field visits ensuring that every project is executed with care, transparency, and integrity.
Over the years, volunteers from diverse backgrounds have joined her, strengthening AITYS’s culture of compassion, service, and community partnership. Guided by humility and sincerity, Madhu often sums up her philosophy in simple words:
“Someone helped me get somewhere in life; now it’s my turn to do the same for others.”
- To Promote the completion of secondary education for all school children.
- To upgrade school infrastructure with modern amenities and help bridge the gap between urban and rural education opportunities
- Providing sanitary pads and essential undergarments to students to support basic health and hygiene.
Progress Snapshot
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AITYS Founded
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Students Sponsored
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Schools Supported
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Free Medical Camps
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People Treated
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Villages reached
AITYS currently works primarily in Pauri Garhwal — a 5,230 sq km district spanning the Gangetic plains and the northern Himalayas in Uttarakhand. Our work is centred here and extends to Haridwar and Uttarkashi.
Media Coverage
No child should be deprived of education due to poverty.
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