The ‘Friends of Adarsh’ group was started in 2000-01, having a particular section of the community in mind, that of people who could not devote much time or physical effort in the day to day running of the Trust, but were keen in helping Adarsh in some way or the other. But it was realized that these people could pitch in with their help not only financial but also the resources at their disposal like qualitative suggestions to improve the working of the Trust, technical help, manpower, utilization of their contacts for furthering the activities of the Trust and involving more people from the society etc.

Initially though there were some results, it gradually became a dormant group. In early 2005, it was decided to revive this group once again and plans were on to actively involve existing members and add new members to this group, as we had realized that a project such as ours cannot proceed without active participation of the community. During the past one year this group has made outstanding contributions to the Trust. A meeting held on the 7th of May ’05 was a grand success in on e sense , that it enabled many new entrants to become aware of the happenings at the Trust.They gave many valuable suggestions. The outcome of the meeting has been mailed to all the members and we are quite happy that some significant developments have also taken place since then.
Initially when the group was started, it was decided to enroll members by collecting a one-time contribution of Rs. 500/-. But it has been decided that this will be discontinued for two reasons- one, for a group like this which needs tomaintain a continuous and active relationship, a one time contact will not serve the purpose. Secondly, we also feel that the asking amount is no longer appropriate in today’s society. So we propose a sum of Rs.150/- per month, rounded off to Rs. 2000/-per year, preferably given in a single or two installments, to reduce the administrative work, which also realizes the outlined objectives.

Apart from the financial help, we would like the members to come out with more ideas for increasing the level of participation of the community, bringing in more members under ‘Friends of Adarsh’, outlining steps for more organizational and corporate support, increasing awareness among the society as well as a time bound implementation of all these ideas.