Abhay Ashram is a social welfare organization founded by Dr. Prafulla Ghosh, Dr. Suresh Bandyopadhyay and Dr. Nripen Basu in 1910 in Comilla

Comilla

Comilla is a city in south-eastern Bangladesh, located along the Dhaka-Chittagong Highway. It is the administrative center of the Comilla District, part of the Chittagong Division. The Eastern Wing of Bangladesh Highway Police is located in Comilla....

 in the then Eastern Bengal and Assam

Eastern Bengal and Assam

Eastern Bengal and Assam was a province of British India, constituted of the eastern portion of the erstwhile province of Bengal and the Chief Commissioner's province of Assam. The new province came into being on 16th October 1905, following a partition of Bengal. The Bengali Hindu people agitated...

, now in present day Bangladesh

Bangladesh

Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...

. Initially named Savita Mission , it was rechristened to Abhay Ashram by Mohandas Gandhi in 1921.

Inspired by the ideals of Swami Vivekananda

Swami Vivekananda

Swami Vivekananda , born Narendranath Dutta , was the chief disciple of the 19th century mystic Ramakrishna Paramahansa and the founder of the Ramakrishna Math and the Ramakrishna Mission...

and founded during the height of the Swadeshi Movement, the Savita Mission's primary objective was to empower the rural population though self-sufficiency, entrepreneurship and employment. It also aimed to make the women self-sufficient through weaving and other cottage industries. The Abhay Ashram later manufactured khadi, palibastra, hand-made paper and ghanir tel.