Sahara is a therapeutic transitional community working with people irrespective of their beliefs, economic status, literate or illiterate and the marginalized. Its aim is to make people confident, independent and free them from the systems that ensure that their lot in life will never improve.

Sahara works particularly with people who face difficult situations due to substance use and HIV/AIDS.

We provide opportunity and empowerment to them through a variety of comprehensive, user friendly treatment options and social reintegration programs.

Ever since our inception in 1978, we have not viewed substance users as criminals, nor are they treated like they are less than human. All through our 36 projects, people are treated like people, with their faults, sicknesses and weaknesses, strengths and talents. The substance user or the person living with HIV/AIDS is a human being with dignity and needs to be treated as such. This approach builds self-confidence and self-esteem at a rate unheard of with other treatment centres.

The doors of Sahara are always open, night or day, for persons looking for a friend, for assistance, or for advice. This policy, running through Sahara for the past 27 years, has ensured that the philosophy of helping people in need is not just a day job, but a way of living.

The charm of Sahara is our community. Through regular 'coffee nights' that involve music, dancing, and of course, coffee-football matches, performances by the Sahara Band and Talent Days, annual Sahara Olympics (track & field events and volleyball, cricket & soccer matches), Sahara is a family offering support, love, friendship and fun.

Sahara is an organisation alive with music. It is an integral part of all the programs and all types of music can be heard. We are arguably the only rehabilitation program in India with its own band that plays regularly at fundraisers, UN functions and parties. Music provides an outlet to stress and provides an outlet to stress and provides a base for bonding in this therapeutic community.