Real lives. Real courage. Real transformation — every story here is why Seva Dham Foundation exists.
Nagpur, Maharashtra
Ramesh Kumar, 38, had worked as a construction labourer in Nagpur for over a decade. When the construction site closed abruptly in early 2023, he lost everything — his work, his income, and within weeks, his rented room. With his wife Savitri and two children (aged 4 and 7), he had no choice but to sleep under a flyover near the old bus stand.
Our Anna Seva team found Ramesh's family during a routine distribution round. Over the next 14 months, they received daily meals and were connected to our rehabilitation support network — helping Ramesh find stable employment and the family secure government housing.
Every face behind these stories reminds us why service is our highest duty.
Healthcare
जहाँ डॉक्टर न पहुँचा, वहाँ सेवा पहुँची
200 patients in a single day. Our Mobile Health Van reached Malgaon — a tribal hamlet with no road, no clinic, and no memory of a doctor ever visiting. What happened next changed everything.
Women Empowerment
मीना की उड़ान — खुद का व्यवसाय, खुद की पहचान
Meena attended our 12-week training with nothing but determination. Today she runs her own tiffin service, employs two other women, and earns ₹9,500 every month — entirely on her own.
Education
अर्जुन का दूसरा मौका — पढ़ेगा इंडिया, बढ़ेगा इंडिया
Arjun, 13, was about to drop out to work in a tea stall. Our scholarship intervention — ₹3,000 every month — kept him in school. He ranked 3rd in his district board exams last year.
Environment
आशा का हरा सपना — पाँच सौ पेड़, एक शिक्षिका का संकल्प
Government school teacher Asha Khare spent her weekends planting trees with students. When the forest department noticed, they partnered with Seva Dham to scale her program to 12 more schools.
Elderly Care
शिवराम बाबा — मिले, खिलाये, कभी न भुलाये
Shivram, 74, was found sleeping on a temple step in December. His family had moved cities and lost contact. Our Vriddha Seva team found him, reunited him with his daughter in Pune, and ensured he had care.
Gau Seva
लक्ष्मी गाय — कसाई के चंगुल से, गौशाला की गोद तक
Lakshmi was being transported illegally when our team intervened. She arrived at our gaushala malnourished and injured. Six months later, she is healthy, beloved and has become the heart of our gaushala community.
Nagpur, Maharashtra · Feb 2023 – Mar 2024
Ramesh Kumar, 38, had worked as a construction labourer in Nagpur for over a decade. He was reliable, hard-working, and known on every major site in the Dharampeth area. When the project he was working on shut down abruptly in January 2023, the contractor disappeared overnight — along with the workers' final month of wages.
Within two weeks, Ramesh had exhausted his savings paying rent and buying food for his wife Savitri, 34, and their two children — Kiran, 7, and Pooja, 4. By early February, he could no longer afford even the ₹800/month room he was renting. The landlord, sympathetic but firm, asked them to leave.
A Seva Dham Foundation Anna Seva volunteer, Pradeep, spotted the family near the Sitabardi flyover on a cold February night. Kiran and Pooja were crying. Savitri was trying to soothe them with nothing. Pradeep brought them food that night — our dal-rice-sabzi bhandara plate — and stayed to listen to their story.
The next morning, Ramesh's family was formally registered with our Anna Seva program. They received three meals a day, every day. Pooja stopped crying at night. Kiran, who had missed school for three weeks, was re-enrolled through our coordination with the local municipal school.
Over the next 14 months, Ramesh rebuilt slowly. Our team connected him to a new construction contractor through our Skill Seva network. He found work within 3 weeks. He saved enough for a deposit on a new room by April 2023. In November 2023, through our coordination with the PM Awas Yojana facilitation desk, the family was allotted a government housing unit.
Help us reach more families like Ramesh's. Every ₹50 feeds a family for a day.
Donate to Anna SevaMalgaon, Madhya Pradesh · October 2023
Malgaon is a tribal hamlet of approximately 340 residents, located 62 km from the nearest town in central Madhya Pradesh. It has no road — only a kachcha path that floods every monsoon. It has no electricity except for two solar panels. And until October 2023, it had never — not once in living memory — been visited by a qualified doctor.
Our Mobile Health Van team discovered Malgaon while following up on a patient referral from a neighbouring village. When they arrived at 7 AM, they expected 30–40 patients. By 9 AM, over 200 people were already waiting — some of whom had walked 8 km barefoot since 4 AM.
Our team — one doctor, two nurses, a pharmacist and four volunteers — worked for 11 hours straight. 200 patients were examined. 18 critical cases were immediately referred for specialist care, including 2 children with severe malnutrition, 3 women with dangerously high blood pressure during late pregnancy, and one elderly man with an undiagnosed diabetic wound that had become gangrenous.
One of the referred patients, Parvati, 28, was 8 months pregnant with her blood pressure at 180/110. She was transported in our van to Jabalpur immediately. She delivered a healthy baby boy 3 weeks later. The doctors at the hospital said that without that intervention, she and her baby may not have survived.
Following the October visit, we established a monthly Mobile Health Camp at Malgaon. We are now in talks with the district health authority to station a Community Health Worker (ANM) there permanently, with Seva Dham covering the stipend as a pilot.
Help us fund more Mobile Health Van visits to unreached villages.
Support Healthcare SevaNagpur, Maharashtra · Jan 2023 – Present
Meena Deshmukh, 32, had spent most of her adult life doing daily wage cleaning work — ₹200–250 a day when there was work, nothing when there wasn't. Her husband worked as a loader at the vegetable market, starting at 3 AM and earning ₹350 on good days. Together they had two children and a shared dream — that someday, the children would not have to worry about money the way they did.
A neighbour told Meena about Seva Dham Foundation's 12-week Micro-Enterprise Training Program in late 2022. She almost didn't come. "I thought, log sikhate hain aur phir kuch nahi hota — people teach you and nothing comes of it." But something made her attend the first session. She hasn't looked back since.
Over 12 sessions — held every Saturday so working women could attend — Meena learned business planning, cost calculation, food safety, packaging, how to use WhatsApp for marketing, and how to apply for a PM Mudra Loan. Her trainer, Ritu Ma'am, said Meena was the most focused student in the batch.
At graduation, Meena presented a formal business plan for "Meena's Tiffin Service" — targeting 20 office workers in her colony. She secured a ₹25,000 Mudra Loan with Seva Dham's facilitation support. She bought stainless steel containers, a new gas cylinder, and basic packaging material.
She launched with 5 customers in February 2023. By May, she had 18. By October, she had 28 regular subscribers paying ₹80/day for a hot, home-cooked tiffin. She now earns ₹9,500 per month — net profit — more than double what she earned cleaning. She has hired her sister-in-law as an assistant and trained her neighbour Savita who now has 12 customers of her own.
Help us train 100 more women like Meena across every state.
Support Women EmpowermentYavatmal, Maharashtra · June 2022 – Present
Arjun Rathod was 13 years old and in Class 7 when his father, a cotton farmer in Yavatmal district, died by suicide following a crop failure. His mother, Rekha, was left alone with Arjun and his younger sister, a small piece of land, and a debt of ₹1.2 lakh. Within two weeks of his father's death, Arjun told his mother he was going to quit school and work in the tea stall at the market.
Rekha cried all night. The next morning, she went to the local Anganwadi and asked if anyone could help. The worker there knew our education seva coordinator and called her immediately.
Seva Dham Foundation's Education Seva team assessed Arjun's situation and enrolled him immediately in our Scholarship Program — ₹3,000 per month to cover school fees, books, stationery, and nutrition support. A volunteer tutor was assigned to him for weekly help sessions, as Arjun had missed 4 weeks of school and was behind in Maths and English.
He went back to school the following Monday. His teacher said he came back "with different eyes" — more serious, more focused, as if he had seen what the alternative looked like and decided it wasn't for him.
In the Class 10 board exams in 2024, Arjun Rathod ranked 3rd in Yavatmal district, scoring 91.4%. He wants to become an engineer. He has applied for a merit scholarship at a Pune engineering college and Seva Dham is supporting his application. His mother now works as a daily assistant at our local seva centre, earning a steady income.
₹3,000/month keeps a child in school. Support our Education Seva today.
Support Education SevaWardha, Maharashtra · April 2022 – Present
Asha Khare has been a science teacher at Zila Parishad Secondary School in Wardha for 19 years. In 2021, while teaching a chapter on deforestation, she noticed her students seemed to know what was happening to forests — but had no sense that they could do anything about it. "They looked hopeless," she says. "Like it was somebody else's problem."
That weekend, she bought 20 saplings out of her own salary. She brought them to school on Monday and announced to her Class 6 students: we are starting a garden. Nobody told me to do it. I just did it.
Word spread. Parents volunteered on weekends. Students named trees after themselves. By the end of the school year, the compound had 120 trees — neem, peepal, amla, karanj and mango — all planted and maintained by the children. A local journalist wrote a small piece about it, and that article reached our Environmental Seva team in Nagpur.
We partnered with Asha formally in April 2022 — providing saplings, soil testing, drip irrigation equipment, and our eco-ambassador training for her students. Within 18 months, the school had 500 trees. The Maharashtra Forest Department's divisional officer visited and called it "the best school-level afforestation effort I have seen in 25 years of service."
In 2023, Seva Dham facilitated the expansion of Asha's model to 12 neighbouring schools across Wardha and Amravati districts. Each school received 40 saplings, training and a designated student "Green Captain." Asha now travels on weekends to train other teachers — entirely voluntarily.
Support our School Eco-Ambassador Program — ₹500 plants a tree in a child's name.
Plant a Tree TodayAmravati, Maharashtra · December 2023
In the first week of December 2023, a Seva Dham volunteer named Deepak was passing through the old temple area of Amravati when he saw an old man sitting on the steps. It was 6 AM. The temperature was 9°C. The man — Shivram Kale, 74 — had a torn shawl, no footwear, and an expression that Deepak later described as "a person who has given up."
Deepak stopped. He brought chai from a nearby stall. He sat down. And slowly, over 40 minutes, Shivram's story came out.
Our Vriddha Seva coordinator, Nalini, was reached immediately. She arranged shelter, food and warm clothing for Shivram that day. Over the next four days, our team worked to locate his family. They found his son, Suresh Kale, through the Pune municipal voter list — a slow but ultimately successful search.
Suresh had been desperately trying to reach his father for two years, having lost touch after his father's old phone was stolen. He had filed a missing person report in Pune. He wept when we called. He arrived in Amravati within 36 hours of being contacted.
Shivram was reunited with his son on December 14, 2023. He hugged Suresh for a long time without speaking. Our team stayed to ensure the transition was smooth — Suresh committed to bringing his father to Pune, and as of March 2024, Shivram lives with his son's family and attends our Pune Senior Citizen Engagement Program every week.
No elder should be alone. Support our Vriddha Seva — Elderly Care Program.
Support Elderly CareNagpur District, Maharashtra · August 2023
On a humid August night in 2023, a truck driver tipped off our Gau Raksha team about an illegal transport of cattle moving through the Hingna road. Our team coordinated with local authorities and intercepted the vehicle at a checkpoint. Inside were 14 animals in critical condition — malnourished, dehydrated, and injured from being crammed together for over 18 hours without food or water.
One cow, who our team named Lakshmi, was in the worst state. She had a rope burn around her neck so deep it had caused an infection, and she was trembling with exhaustion. She refused to stand when the truck was unloaded.
Lakshmi was transferred to our Seva Dham Gaushala and placed under the care of our resident veterinarian, Dr. Patil. Her wound was cleaned and dressed daily. She was put on a recovery diet — soft grass, jaggery water, and mineral supplements. For the first two weeks, she needed to be coaxed to eat.
By the third week, something shifted. She started responding to her name. By week five, she was greeting volunteers at the gaushala gate each morning. The gaushala team says she has a personality unlike any other animal there — calm, affectionate, and alert.
Today, Lakshmi is healthy, her coat is glossy, and she has become something of a mascot for the entire gaushala community. Visitors who come for our gau darshan almost always end up spending time with Lakshmi. She is gentle with children and has been used in our awareness programs showing school students the reality of what gau raksha means in practice.
₹1,500/month feeds and cares for one rescued cow. Support our Gaushala.
Support Gau SevaEvery donation, every volunteer hour, every share creates the next story of change. Be part of it.