At Vidyadhan, our dream is to provide our youth with access to opportunity. To allow them to contribute to and benefit from our economic progress. Higher education makes this dream a reality.Today, India has a very low gross enrolment ratio in higher education of 25.8%. This is much below global averages. Over the past 20 years, we have dedicated ourselves to alleviating the challenges which result in this low gross enrolment ratio, namely:
i. Poor awareness of available opportunitiesii. The lack of access to good economic infrastructure andiii. Affordability
WHAT
Vidyadhan is a flagship higher education scholarship program of the Shibulal Family Philanthropic Initiatives. Meritorious students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds are provided financial support starting from standard XI till they complete
graduation in a degree of their choice.Vidyadhan focuses on the holistic development of our youth. We focus on equipping them with the lifeskills and employability skills which will help them to leverage the opportunities as well as tackle the challenges that will come their way in their professional journey.
Financial Support
From 11th grade till graduation.
Training
Personality development, Team-work, critical thinking, problem solving.
Mentoring
Professional mentoring & Career guidance.
How Can You Transform Lives?
EACH ONE TEACH ONE
Individual
Vidyadhan provides an easy- to- use platform for any individual who is interested in sponsoring higher education of a student with utmost transparency and without any administrative hassles. They can choose one student or many. This is creating a pay-it-forward cascading movement because scholarship recipients are coming back to sponsor another needy student. Thus, Vidyadhan enables us to transform lives through education, one individual and one scholar at a time.
IMPACT AT SCALE
Corporate
Vidyadhan enables not only an individual but also an organization to transform lives through education - at scale. By investing our time, experience and focus over the past twenty years, we have built Vidyadhan on a technology-based platform. Our stringent selection process that includes test, interview and house visits ensures that the right person is receiving the scholarship. Today, organisations can instantly deploy a scholarship program across the country through the Vidyadhan platform with zero administrative costs.
ALL HANDS TOGETHER
Foundation
Vidyadhan enables other Trusts and Foundations to launch their own scholarship programs and transform lives through education with minimal administrative cost. They can sponsor students selected through the stringent process at zero administrative cost. White-labeling(using their own branding) enables them to use our system and run their program and find sponsors without investing heavily on IT systems. This creates a multiplier effect where different stakeholders are coming together with a common purpose for the benefit of the community
SPONSORSHIP AMOUNT
Your contribution can give wings to the dreams of a brilliant student and transform the lives of multiple generations.
The Vidyadhan Platform is an initiative of The Sarojini Damodaran Foundation (SDF). It is envisioned to be an institutional information framework. The platform's primary goal is to provide direct one to one connections between sponsors and deserving, economically underprivileged students. The Platform will facilitate scholarships and holistic support, including mentoring by the sponsors for the educational well-being of such students, in their pursuit of higher education and professional qualifications.
What will the platform not do?
Since the sponsorship funds will be directly sent from the sponsor to the student the platform will not receive any funds in the process and will not have access to the money transferred. The foundation also will have no access to the funds.
The platform/foundation will not charge any administrative, maintenance or transaction fees to the sponsors or students.
What sort of privacy measures are in place for the sponsors?
Sponsors can choose from multiple levels of privacy depending on the anonymity preferred. There are 4 levels of privacy available to the sponsor.
Public View The sponsor profile and student(s) sponsored is viewable to anyone viewing the SDF website
Sponsor Community View The sponsor profile and student(s) sponsored is viewable to all the registered sponsors on the platform and to only the student(s) selected by the sponsor
Student Community View The sponsor profile is viewable to all the registered students on the platform
Selected Student View The sponsor profile is viewable only to the student(s) selected by the sponsor
For all 4 levels of privacy the activity will be viewable to the Vidyadhan platform administrators. Communication between parties over the platform will be monitored to ensure compliance with policies.
How does a sponsor contribute to support a student?
a. The student will first setup a bank account with a Vidyadhan partner bank. This account will be used to receive contributions from the sponsor over the period of education supported. The sponsor can transfer to this account from around the world via money transfer agents such as Xoom, TransferWise, Money2India etc. The Vidyadhan platform will track, record and confirm once the contribution is received. While the platform will not have access to the money transferred it will monitor and record transfer for compliance with RBI regulations and for transparency.
b. Sponsors can also choose to take support from the Foundation in the payment process wherein they transfer the money to the Foundation's account and the Foundation then transfers the money into the student's account. This is particularly helpful when an individual or Corporate is sponsoring multiple students.
Will the contribution be tax exempt?
a. Any scholarship payments made through the Foundation will receive an 80G tax exemption certificate foundation
b. Scholarships paid by the Sponsors directly to the student's account will not be tax exempt since the amount is not received by the Foundation but sent directly to the student for payment of school fees. The Vidyadhan platform will not have access to the contribution but will help facilitate the transfer of the contribution to the student selected by the sponsor. The platform and the foundation will not charge any administrative fees or any other kind of fees to anyone involved. This will reduce the sponsorship amount and will offset part of the tax benefit.
