Australia's Foreign Minister, Julie Bishop, who was on her first visit to India as foreign minister, visited an Asha education project in Ambedkar Basti.
Bishop met with local community members and heard stories of transformation from the students.
As a demonstration of Australia's continuing support to Asha, Bishop handed over a cheque of Rs 10 lakhs to Asha Foundation.
During her visit, Bishop said: "I am honoured to have this opportunity to visit Asha in the presence of our High Commissioner Mr Patrick Suckling and the former High Commissioner Mr Peter Varghese. So, we are here to demonstrate our commitment and support to Asha and all that it stands for."
"I pay tribute to everyone who has been involved in supporting the people who live here to have a better life, to have hopes and dreams, and aspirations and to listen to the stories they just told to us, it says it all," she added.
"The fact that young people now have an opportunity to have an education, that the women are becoming more self confident and are able to take the role in their destiny. And, it's often said that if you educate a man, you have educated one person, if you educate a woman, you educate an entire family, indeed a village. And so, I am very pleased to see the number of women who are taking up the opportunities, women and girls taking up the opportunities, to be educated," she said further.
"I have come to India to demonstrate Australia's commitment to the Australia-India relationship. We have many things in common, including our love of cricket and I am just sorry that the West Indians were not good enough to continue the test match on Saturday, otherwise, I had hoped to have an opportunity to see Mr Sachin Tendulkar in play. However, the game ended too soon. But we have other things in common beyond just our passion and love for cricket and that includes a deep respect for the individual and the dignity of every individual life.
Can I assure you that the people of Australia have very strong and warm and affectionate feelings for the people of India. We have about 450000 Australians who are from India in our country and for country of only 22 million people that's a significant group of Indian Australians. I am very touched by the words of the support Australian government has provided to Asha and clearly this is a model that deserves support from across the globe," Bishop concluded.
