UPAY (उपाय) or Under Privileged Advancement by Youth is a non-governmental organization which works towards the provision of quality education to the underprivileged children in India. It was founded by Varun Shrivastava, an IIT Kharagpur-graduate and NTPC Ltd Engineer, with the help of his colleagues on 12 May 2010 to make quality education available at the remote villages of India. It was registered as an NGO on 19 September 2011.

History
UPAY (Underprivileged Advancement by Youth), was founded on 20 May 2010 by a group of young engineers from IITs and NITs  working at NTPC Ltd in a small village called Kumbhari in the outskirts of Nagpur. It has been registered as an NGO under the Society Registration Act, 1860 and Mumbai Public Trust Act, 1950 (Reg No. Maharashtra/268/2011/Bhandara). Its main aim is to provide opportunities to underprivileged children. Since its inception, a large number of educated youth has joined this movement and has been spreading it across the country. Its members include teachers, doctors, engineers, lawyers, students, housewives, retired persons and other working professionals.

Projects

Reach & Teach

UPAY was established to provide a SOLUTION to the everlasting problem of rural education. It is working on developing a sustainable process of imparting knowledge to these underprivileged children. Right now, it has 17 centers having 1300 children.

Footpath Shala

In cities like Nagpur, Pune, Gurgaon and Mumbai people living on the footpath are doing some unskilled labor or literally begging for their bread & butter are some of them. There are people in the society who don’t have any planning for their future, who are struggling against poverty, malnutrition, unhealthiness, family planning. UPAY  has taken initiative to replace begging bowls with books for street children in 9 centers with 350 street children enrolled at footpathshala. 20% street children are enrolled in schools. It is an open pathshala, similar to Rabindranath Tagore`s concept of open schools. Classes are being taken by UPAY volunteers at Footpath only.

Sabkasaamaan.com
Apart from educating the children, UPAY is also working on how to make these underprivileged areas economically independent. UPAY is targeting to tap the local skills and plans to develop small scale industries. Besides seasonal agricultural income, villagers should have perineal source of income and development. For this, a small development is introduction of an online portal,"sabkasaamaan.com". On this the local products developed by the villagers are available for sale. So that apart from the weekly village markets and limited customer base now their produce are getting exposure to a wide network.

Granth on Rath
GRANTH ON RATH is a mobile library for recycling the old books to the Under-privileged students from affluent students and bridge the rural urban divide.

Books are provided to the under privileged students at a very nominal rent.

Awards and recognition 

LOKMATA SAMAJIK SANSTHA PURASKAR  by LOKMATA SUMATITAI SMRUTI PRATISHTHAN, November 2017

References

 http://www.upay.org.in/index.php/
 http://www.apnasaamaan.com/
 https://www.facebook.com/pages/UPAYUnder-Privilegeds-Advancement-By-Youth/245407178844117?fref=ts
 UPAY in media: http://www.upay.org.in/z/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=28&Itemid=865

 

Organisations based in Nagpur
Educational organisations based in India
Organizations established in 2010
2010 establishments in Maharashtra