About Snehwan USA
Snehwan is a home, a school and a working farm for the children of India’s drought-hit farming families. Snehwan USA Inc is the US nonprofit that funds it.
Where the children come from
Marathwada and the districts around it have lived through repeated drought for more than a decade. When a cotton or soybean crop fails twice in a row, a family that borrowed to plant it cannot repay. Tens of thousands of farmers in Maharashtra have taken their own lives under that debt. What happens next is quieter and almost never reported: the children stop going to school and start working the fields, and a second generation inherits the same debt.
Snehwan interrupts that sequence. It takes the child out of the labour market and puts them back in school, with a bed, three meals, and someone who checks their homework.
What Snehwan is
A residential campus at Koyali, near Chakan in Pune district, about 20 miles north of the city. One hundred and eighty children live there full time. Roughly a thousand more come through each year for the computer center, the library, the health camps, and the school-fee program.
Alongside standard schooling, children learn yoga, music, cooking, farming, dairy, accounting, and administration. The older students run the dairy and the food-processing unit as real businesses, with real ledgers.
Our goals
Four commitments that every project and program has to serve.
Education
Schooling, nutrition, and shelter for children from farming and marginalized communities, plus the skills to make a living afterwards.
Health and wellness
Free health check-ups and medication camps for people who cannot afford a clinic, delivered by a mobile unit.
Character and enterprise
Empathy, resilience, and entrepreneurship taught as deliberately as mathematics, so students leave able to build something.
Living lightly
The campus runs on solar power and cooks on biogas produced on site. Children learn conservation by operating the systems.
How the US organization and the India organization fit together
Snehwan USA Inc is a Georgia nonprofit corporation, EIN 42-4944995, governed by an independent US board. Its application for recognition of exemption under section 501(c)(3) is pending. It raises funds in the United States and will make grants to Snehwan in India under a written grant agreement with reporting requirements.
Snehwan (India) is a registered Indian public charitable trust with 12A and 80G registration and a valid registration under the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, FCRA registration no. 083930758. All foreign contributions are received into its designated FCRA account and reported to the Ministry of Home Affairs in the annual FC-4 return.
That structure matters for you in two practical ways. Every dollar that crosses the border does so through a route that is documented on both sides; and if the IRS recognises our exemption, gifts may be deductible retroactive to our incorporation date, 3 September 2026, to the extent allowed by law. The application is pending.
Common questions
Not yet. Snehwan USA Inc has applied to the IRS for recognition of exemption under section 501(c)(3), EIN 42-4944995, and the application is pending. If it is approved, contributions may be deductible retroactive to our incorporation date, 3 September 2026, to the extent allowed by law. We acknowledge every gift in writing, with the language the IRS requires for gifts of $250 or more.
Snehwan USA Inc has no financial history to quote: it was incorporated in September 2026. Snehwan itself has been running in India for ten years. Snehwan USA Inc has no employees and no paid officers; its directors serve unpaid. Our costs to date are the fees of incorporating and applying for exemption. Once we have a full year we will publish our accounts and our Form 990 on the accountability page.
No. A gift tied to a named individual would make us a conduit rather than a grantmaker, which is the arrangement that stops a contribution being deductible at all. We also do not publish children’s full names or identifying details, and we do not put a donor in correspondence with a minor. Our safeguarding page sets out both reasons.
Yes, and visitors are welcome. Visits are arranged by Snehwan, who will set any conditions — write to Ashok Deshmane at [email protected]. If it is easier, write to [email protected] and we will pass the request on.
Every dollar we raise here becomes a grant to Snehwan.
Snehwan USA Inc has no employees and no paid officers. Our directors serve unpaid, and the board approves each grant before it is made.