Many villages throughout India are oceans of poverty and illiteracy. The influx of technology, commerce, education and metropolitanism that has flooded most of India’s cities since independence seems to have not even touched these villages. They exist as they did centuries ago. However, one crucial change has occurred. Now, basic education and marketable skills are absolute necessities in order to subsist in even the smallest communities. Hence, those who lack this education and training go to sleep hungry each night.

In the midst of this ocean of destitution, there are islands of light, islands of knowledge, islands of hope. The Y.E.S. schools are some of these islands. IHRF believes that children are the future of our planet and that it is our responsibility to help them make that future a bright one. Hence, the foundation is supporting and sponsoring numerous free programs run by the Divine Shakti Foundation dedicated to bringing education to the illiterate, training to the unemployable and light to the darkness. The YES program is dedicated to giving poor and disadvantaged children an alternative to begging and to providing them with the best chance possible to live a life free from destitution.

The Y.E.S. program encompasses dozens of children’s schools, including four free schools in Rishikesh which educate nearly 1,000 children in the areas. These schools are located in Rishikesh, Swargashram, Rani Pokhri, Lucknow, Himachal Pradesh, Orissa, Uttarkashi, Tamil Nadu as well as other areas of the Himalayas and North-East India.

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