Yashik Dhulashia -  Founder and Executive Director

Yashik, brings a deeply personal understanding of challenging circumstances and a lifelong commitment to humanitarian work to his leadership role. His early life experiences significantly shaped his vision for the organization.

Early Life & Personal Journey

Yashik grew up in Kenya in the seventies, spending considerable time in rural areas, farms, and small villages where he witnessed firsthand families struggling with inadequate food, shelter, and education for their children. During his teenage years, his own family experienced a profound shift in their financial standing, leading to a personal encounter with economic hardship. Fortunately, he and his family received crucial support from loving uncles and aunts, enabling them to immigrate and settle in the United States for a better life.

A Lifelong Passion for Helping Others

After building a successful professional career in Cyber Security that allowed him to travel the world, Yashik felt "always drawn toward helping those who were unfortunate" and demonstrated a consistent willingness" to contribute to helping others be successful in their lives." A pivotal moment occurred during a visit to Jaisalmer, India, where the sight of a "tent city in the middle of the desert" profoundly impacted him, reinforcing his desire to give back. This passion converged with a vision for a non-profit dedicated to children when he encountered others, like Gio, who were passionate about helping less fortunate children and supporting an orphanage in Uganda. Inspired by such shared dedication, Yashik began the journey of establishing Ayuda Yuva, driven by his deeply held belief in the power of individual transformation.

Vision for Ayuda Yuva

As Founder and Executive Director, Yashik's vision for Ayuda Yuva is to "make a difference one child at a time." He is hopeful that helping even a single child overcome their challenging circumstances and be able to build a successful life will create a ripple effect, impacting that family and their surrounding community for generations to come. 

Under his leadership, Ayuda Yuva Inc. is dedicated to its mission of transforming the lives of underprivileged children by providing essential resources and support. This includes offering food, shelter, clothing, and education to empower children to build a sustainable future and lead stable, dignified lives. Yashik, in his role as Founder and Executive Director, oversees operations, strategic direction, and financial management for the organization.

Shyam Dhulashia – Director of Strategic Initiatives

Shyam’s commitment to service began at age 12, when he visited his father’s home in Kenya and experienced the life of a villager on a coffee plantation. There, he shared meals and moments of joy with schoolchildren who had grown up in vastly different conditions than his own as they were part of the local farming community, yet whose openness and resilience awakened a profound sense of shared humanity. When tragedy struck the village two years later, destroying the school and their homes, Shyam and his family launched a grassroots effort to provide food, clothing, and infrastructure to the displaced children and families. This early encounter seeded his understanding of global inequity and the ethical responsibility that comes with socioeconomic privilege.

Today, Shyam is a cognitive neuroscience researcher at the Riddle Lab at Florida State University, where he investigates the neural mechanisms underlying transformation and well-being during advanced meditation retreats. He also contributes to several nonprofit initiatives focused on democratizing human flourishing and expanding access to personalized mental health care. This work is driven by the same values that first took root in Solai: the belief that all people deserve the foundational conditions of safety and support that enable them to lead meaningful lives.

As he prepares to begin his M.A. in Clinical Mental Health Counseling at the University of Central Florida, Shyam continues to integrate insights from neuroscience, contemplative practice, and lived experience to inform both his therapeutic approach and leadership at Ayuda Yuva. In his role as Director of Strategic Initiatives, he advocates for programs that support the basic human needs of underserved children, with a deep awareness of how early-life adversity shapes a child’s long-term development and interactions with the world around them. His vision for Ayuda Yuva is to provide critical resources to foster physiological and psychological safety, while cultivating the resilience, interpersonal connection, and empowerment necessary for a sustainable, compassionate future.

Kelli Gagne – Secretary

Sangeeta Dhulashia - Strategic Advisor