Early Rain (Shabnam) Foundation was founded to help educate street children, former child prostitutes and poor in Chennai (formerly Madras), India. Many children in India grow up on the streets. They are orphaned, abandoned or turned out on the streets by their parents to beg, steal or sell their bodies for money. Some children are even sold to pimps. Many are taking drugs by the time they are 9; selling themselves by 12 and dead from disease and abuse before they reach the age of 20.

Most of the street children of Madras have never seen the inside of a school. The Early Rain Foundation provides books, pencils and shoes so that some can attend school. Others receive rudimentary education, provided by volunteer university students, in ad hoc classrooms set up by the Early Rain Foundation in slum areas. Early Rain also runs several vocational education projects to train former prostitutes and abandoned women how to sew and make clothing. Boys who were formerly male prostitutes or street thieves learn how to paint houses and successfully run their own businesses. Early Rain also has programs to educate and encourage AIDS/HIV victims and their caregivers who are outcasts from their society.

Legacy Institute helps fund several vocational and educational projects run by the Early Rain Foundation.