Our history
From eighteen children in a rented house in Bhosari to a working campus at Koyali.
- 2015
Snehwan history
One engineer, eighteen children
Ashok Deshmane, a software engineer who grew up in a farming family in Beed district, spends nine months surveying Beed, Washim, Nanded, and Aurangabad, identifying children who had dropped out of school after a parent’s death. He quits his job. A friend lends a four-bedroom house in Bhosari, in the suburbs of Pune. Snehwan opens with eighteen children.
- 2016
The parents move in
Ashok’s parents leave their village and come to live at Snehwan to help run it. A donor gives the first set of computers. The residential school program takes shape.
- 2018
Girls’ education begins
Vanchit Gram starts with girls from the Nandi Samaj community who had been collecting scrap and begging on the streets of Bhosari. Thirty girls enter full-time schooling.
- 2019
The computer center opens to the villages
The lab is opened free of charge to children from surrounding villages, not only residents. Enrollment reaches 150.
- 2021
The campus moves to Koyali
Snehwan relocates to a purpose-built campus at Koyali tarfe Chakan, in Khed taluka. Solar power and a biogas plant are installed. The dairy and the composting line begin.
- 2022
India’s first container library
Ten thousand books are installed in a converted shipping container, open to anyone, free, with no membership.
- 2026
Snehwan USA Inc is incorporated
Ashok Deshmane tours the United States in August. Five people who heard him speak incorporate Snehwan USA Inc in Georgia on 3 September 2026 and apply to the IRS for recognition of exemption under section 501(c)(3).
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.