Elizabeth with some of the children in Pune

For Elizabeth Sholtys, a native Ithacan and current senior at Emory University, there's more to getting an education than just writing papers and reading books. At twenty-three, she's already opened the Ashraya Initiative for Children, a home for orphaned children in Pune, India.

Sholtys says the idea came to her when she was a freshman at Emory University. She had just completed two years at the Mahindra United World College in Pune, where she studied during her final year of high school and what would have been her freshman year of college.

Within a week of getting the idea for the home, she had successfully enlisted several of her friends from the Mahindra International School, all of whom live in different parts of the world. Now there are seven directors on the board from different countries—and Sholtys is the oldest.

Sholtys says she and the other board of directors worked hard to make the place a real home. "It's a home for orphaned street children," she explains. "Not an orphanage."

Pune has rampant poverty, with many children living in the streets and begging for money or food. Traditional orphanages in India can serve around eighty children, but Sholtys really wanted their home to be different.

"One of the ways we're really different is that we max out at fifteen kids," Sholtys says. "Beyond that it's not a home; it's an institution."

They currently have nine children living in the home. This enables them to advocate for their individual needs and get the children the help they need. Some of the challenges they've faced include kids with drug abuse problems, as well as lots of emotional and anger management issues.

Though small, the Ashraya Initiative for Children differs from orphanages in that it serves children other organizations won't take.

"The kids are all aged six to fourteen," Sholtys says. "Most other places only take children under five, but we have three boys aged twelve, fourteen and almost fifteen—at least, we think so," she adds. Most of the kids living there don't have any papers, which is another way that makes the home different. Sholtys says they let the kids pick their own birthdays.

The biggest restriction for getting into the home is that the child cannot be HIV positive, due to certain health regulations. But for the kids that do get in—kids whose parents are gone or who have one parent willing to give them up—they are offered a rare opportunity to go to private school and move out of poverty.

"The kids will live with us until they graduate school," Sholtys says. That means some of these older boys, who are at a third or fourth grade level now, might live there until they are in their early to mid-twenties. "We aren't saying to these kids that they have to leave when they turn the arbitrary age of eighteen. We're willing to support them as long as they're willing to study."

And if that wasn't enough, they also offer an outreach program for girls who have families but live in extreme poverty. Sholtys explains that in India, there is still a lot of investment in the boys in the family. Often, in these poor families the girls will stay home to either work with the family or beg in the streets instead of going to school.

The outreach program currently serves ten girls. They have enrolled these girls in school and pay for their material needs to attend class. Plus, three afternoons a week the girls come to the home for a shower, de-lousing, medical exams, a meal and tutoring.

The Ashraya Initiative for Children runs on a shoestring budget. Their fundraising goals for the year are a mere $25,000. Currently, the home is actually two row houses in a residential neighborhood in Pune, but the group hopes to acquire one house for all the children and caregivers to live together.

Sholtys is heading back to Pune in early December for five weeks, before returning to Atlanta to finish her undergraduate degree. After that, she's looking forward to living and working full-time in the home.

For more information: http://ashrayainitiative.org/index.html