Since its founding in 1993, the organization has raised an estimated $1 billion[2] and has helped over 95,000[3][4][5] students complete high school and/or attend university.
The organization was named after the 1912 novel by Jean Webster called Daddy-Long-Legs, about an orphan whose college attendance is sponsored by an anonymous benefactor.
[16] Since 2006, the organization has been providing full scholarships to overseas orphans to study at Japanese high school and universities, and is currently sponsoring 48 international students from Uganda, Somalia, Rwanda, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Turkey, Haiti, Iraq and Afghanistan.
[17][18] Ashinaga runs annual summer camps for loan and scholarship recipients with the aim of putting them in touch with those who share similar experiences.
For younger orphans, the organization runs day programs and camps with a similar aim at purpose-built Rainbow Houses.
Over the years, support was extended to children who had lost parents due to other kind of accidents, illness, suicide, and natural disasters.
[24] As of 31 March 2013, Ashinaga has received nearly 200,000 donations totaling ¥5.9 billion from Japan and overseas for use in providing these grants, as well as scholarships and emotional care for the children who lost parents in the earthquake.
[25] The majority of the funds eventually gathered came from anonymous donations; 2,081 children, including newborns and students of various educational levels, were provided with emergency relief grants worth ¥2.8 million.
[26] These facilities also offer social guidance and various programs designed to improve reading, writing, and public speaking abilities, the goal being "to help students develop into responsible adults who will contribute to society from a base of kindness and compassion, a board perspective, and an international mindset."
The facilities are used for weekly one-day gatherings on weekends for bereaved children and guardians and overnight events held several times a year for families.
[34] From 2000 to 2007, Ashinaga held eight international summer camps in Japan for orphans of earthquakes, war, and other disasters overseas.
Camps focused on the emotional and psychological care of the children, and allowed both Japanese orphans and those from overseas to interact and share their experiences.
[38] On 13 June 2012, the son of the Emperor of Japan, Prince Akishino, and his wife, Princess Kiko, visited Ashinaga Uganda.
The interns’ main aims were to improve Ashinaga students’ conversational and communicative skills, help them develop educationally, and encourage a self-help mind-set.
[44][45] The concert is a collaborative effort between Ashinaga and Vassar College, directed by John Caird, and features dancing and singing by children from a school run by Ashinaga Uganda; music by members of the Vassar College Choirs; and a wadaiko (traditional Japanese drumming) performed by a team of teenagers from the Tohoku region that was devastated by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.