Dalit and Adivasi Students' Portal (DASP) is created and maintained by Insight Foundation which is a group of young students and professionals who have come together and dedicated themselves for making our education system more inclusive, strengthening movements against caste discrimination and prejudices prevalent in the Indian society and creating, supporting, strengthening Dalit and Adivasi youth leadership. Our Objectives With this vision, Insight Foundation is making efforts towards creating and sustaining various nation-wide platforms for Dalit and Adivasi youth, particularly students in higher education, and to facilitate the process through which they are able to use these platforms for - Creating conducive environment in the educational spaces so as  optimize their potential Their intellectual growth Career advancement Fighting against caste-based prejudices and discrimination prevalent in educational spaces Our Background Our group has its genesis in a Dalit students’ magazine called INSIGHT, first published in September 2004, by a small group of students from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). The magazine was an attempt to create a platform where our students could interact with each other and share their views and experiences.   Starting just as a JNU campus magazine, the magazine started circulating in more than 50 universities across the country and received much critical acclaim from faculties, scholars, activists and students.   Apart from creating a space for our students, the magazine also gave us an opportunity to create a nationwide network of our students and young professionals and to use that towards creating various support systems for our students in higher education.   To institutionalize our efforts and to sustain our activities in longer run, our group registered itself as a non-profit trust ‘Insight Foundation’ on 15th March 2007. Since then our group has been involved in number of activities.   Our Activities    Telephone Helpline for Dalit and Adivasi Students    A national helpline for the benefit of our students in higher education. They can call us or send us an SMS for their queries on admissions, courses and career opportunities.   Dalit and Adivasi Students' Portal   An e-resource centre for our students for providing online information, career counseling and mentorship.   Mentorship Programme   A programme to build linkages between successful Dalit and Adivasi students and professionals with our students, especially, those who are in their first year of college/university/institution and are coming from humble backgrounds.   Insight Study Circle   A monthly meeting, organized at New Delhi, on different important socio-economic and political issues to promote young researchers and students to share their work with a larger audience.   Magazine   Insight Young Voices (earlier known as Insight) is a bimonthly english magazine. Since last few months we are not able to publish it regularly due to several constraints but we are committed to restart the printing of our magazine regularly very soon.     Fellowship Programme   Insight Foundation proposes to initiate a fellowship programme, by the end of this year, for young Dalit and Adivasi researchers. The details of which will be displayed soon on our organization website and students portal.   Sparks   A monthly e-news bulletin for young Dalit and Adivasi women.   Insight Symposium   A monthly paper presentations by Dalit and Adivasi Research Scholars and young Activists to share their research work/activities related to their area/field of interest.    University level meeting   Our group has been organizing meetings at various universities to interact more and more with our students, to provide career counseling and to help them to create local support systems.   Documentation   To be able to make policy interventions towards making our education system more inclusive, Insight Foundation is involve with documenting:  On the implementation of various provisions for the welfare of Dalit and Adivasi students and faculty members in higher education Various government policies in the field of higher education Cases of caste-based discrimination in higher education   Our Support   Since its inception our group has sustained through raising financial support from the community itself. All the activities including the printing, distribution of the magazine has been done through such mobilization of resources only.   However, in 2007-08 and in 2009-10, we received small grants from Dalit Foundation, New Delhi, to be able to make efforts toward institutionalizing our activities.   Currently the Ford Foundation, USA, has come forward to provide us major financial support for some of our activities through its ‘Pathways to Higher Education Programme’ for next three years starting from January 2010. Our Staff    Mayanglambam Merina– Documentation Officer (merina@insightfoundation.in) Manju Kumari Rao – Helpline Coordinator (manju@insightfoundation.in) Gurinder Singh Azad – Student Coordinator (gurinder@insightfoundation.in) Anoop Kumar – National Coordinator (anoop@insightfoundation.in)