Asia Pacific Research

There are many talented children with great enthusiasm for studying who cannot continue their education due to economic compulsions of their families. There are many others who somehow manage to continue education but their achievements are affected very adversely due to the severe economic constraints faced by them and their families.

A thoughtful and caring effort called the Udayan Shalini Fellowship Program (USFP) has been trying for several years to help thousands of talented girl students facing difficulties to continue their education and improve their performance in 38 locations in various parts of India. This program has been taken forward by Udayan Care, a Delhi-based voluntary organization. A recent review of Udaipur chapter of this program based on conversations with closely involved volunteers and coordinator brought out several heartwarming achievements of this initiative, achieved within a relatively short time and made possible by the close involvement of several dedicated volunteers and mentors.

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Udayan Care makes available a monthly scholarship to carefully selected girl students of class eleven of several government schools who are selected on the basis of two basic criteria. Firstly, they must be hard-working and sincere students as also revealed in their performance so far. Secondly, they must be from a social or family background in which difficult conditions become a serious problem either for continuing education or for achieving good results in higher education.

The local coordinator of the program Chandani Mali visits several government schools to spread awareness regarding the program and to encourage girl students to apply. Then several volunteers, some of them closely involved with educational work in various capacities, help to make a selection on the basis of a written test, interview and home visits. Visiting homes helps the volunteers to establish a rapport with parents so that they too can be convinced of the desirability of continuing education of the student, while at the same time those most in need of this help and support can be identified in more convincing ways.

Most of the students selected on this basis belong to ST/SC/OBC/Minority communities, but some are also from those general category households who are facing exceptionally difficult circumstances, including sometimes early death of the main breadwinner of the family.

While the selected students get a scholarship of Rupees one thousand per month in class eleven and twelve, this amount is increased somewhat during the post-school years, and there is some provision also for meeting extra expenses in case of any special need as in the case of professional courses. The economic support continues generally for five years, and emphasis is placed on ensuring that the student is ready and well-equipped for reasonably good employment prospects by the time this support period ends.

Towards this end several volunteers are associated with this program as mentors and they guide the selected students in various ways such as guidance regarding employment and career choices and the kind of educational courses that would be most helpful in this. Sometimes the mentoring part of this program proves even more beneficial for the students compared to the economic support. Veenu Gupta, a former additional chief secretary of Rajasthan who looks after the Rajasthan chapters of USFP, says, “ There are many scholarship schemes, but what makes this special is the strong mentoring effort which has proved useful for the girls.”

A core committee of volunteers from Udaipur has been created. They as well as mentors are active in providing these students several opportunities for improving language and public speaking skills. In particular some students need help for improving their English.

While this pattern is common to most places where the USFP is implemented, the Udaipur unit, despite being a relatively younger unit, has added its own special contributions such as a special summer vacation educational and skill improvement program as well as arranging for the support of additional students using local fund-raising.

Conversations with volunteers, core-team members and the local coordinator revealed that they have reasons to be satisfied with the heartwarming progress of several of these girl students who are continuing their education in very difficult economic conditions. Zuleikha Khatun has excelled in extra-curricular activities, public speaking and has shown several glimpses of emerging leadership qualities.  Deepti Rajput has been able to secure 96% marks in class 12 board exams. Gauri Luhar is preparing for NEET exam after taking a break. Nazneem Banu, who comes from a poor artisan household, has done well in English language and in overall academic performance, scoring 92% marks in arts and humanities branch in board exam.

Veenu Gupta adds, “ Some of the girl students who received this support at another Rajasthan center in Jaipur are now studying for medical, engineering and CA.” While the results of this initiative have been very encouraging, some of the closely involved supporters feel that with the inflation of recent years, the scholarship amount should be increased. Secondly, while selecting students for this, the criteria relating to the academic performance or marks achieved should be relaxed if teachers recommend that some students who could not get the desired marks are otherwise very promising and sincere n their education.

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Bharat Dogra is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include A Day in 2071, Saving Earth for Children, Man over Machine and Planet in Peril. He is a regular contributor to Asia-Pacific Research.

All images in this article are from the author

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