|
Sikh
Foundation grants 150 scholarships,
cuts across religious divide
WSN Network
Chandigarh:
In a significant philanthropic score, Amarjit Singh Sodhi, Chairman
of the Sikh Human Development Foundation, USA and a former
bureaucrat who initially began the good work by granting
scholarships to 24 students has now been able to up that figure to
150. Most importantly, the Foundation's largesse is not limited to
only Sikh students but cuts across religious, caste and creed lines.
Mr Sodhi, a former consultant with the World Bank, was in Chandigarh
to generate awareness about the education scholarships offered by
his foundation.
“Higher education is the most pressing need of a nation whose 25 per
cent of the population is below 15 years of age,” he said.
The Sikh Human Development Foundation is a non-profit organisation
and was started in 1999. It grants scholarships to needy but
talented and deserving Indian students for pursuing higher
education. “We aim to increase this number to at least 500 in the
coming few years and the long-term plan is to take it up to a
thousand,” said Mr Sodhi.
Significantly, the foundation is also being registered in India with
an aim to involve the local community for raising endowment fund.
The foundation has helped many students to become doctors,
engineers, nurses etc.
The foundation has tied up with Punjab Agriculture University,
Ludhiana, and Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, for identifying
such needy students. “The Vice-Chancellors have high-powered
committees working under them to screen applications for these
scholarships and recommend the most deserving of cases. We are
generally able to accommodate most of them but only after a
screening is done at our stage,” explained Mr Sodhi.
21 February 2007
|
Read Also
