Higher education, sanskar and self-reliance

Maa Shardamani Trust

Manidweep's selfless stream of service, joining girls' higher education to sanskar, discernment and confidence.

  • 28 March 2001Trust founded
  • Higher & professional studywhere girls are supported
  • ₹1.64 Cr+Scholarship assistance
A service born of foresight

From school to higher education

Scenes from the founding of the Maa Shardamani Trust — worship, and a scholarship being handed over

After the Swami Vivekanand Students' Welfare Charitable Trust was founded, Bhaiya Shri Nandkishore Sharda and Maa Basanti saw that school-level education alone was not enough for a girl's all-round growth and a bright future.

Girls needed the chance of higher education, and with it the sanskar and values that make a person confident, discerning, self-reliant and a responsible citizen. From this foresight, the Maa Shardamani Trust was founded on 28 March 2001.

The true purpose of education

Beyond a scholarship — towards the making of a life

The trust's purpose was to give girls selected at school level a scholarship for higher study, along with free university-level textbooks, so that financial want would not block their path in education. Its working method, its approach to selection and its rules were kept the same as the Swami Vivekanand Students' Welfare Charitable Trust — scholarships tied to financial need, not to marks, with no distinction of caste, religion or community.

This effort was never limited to helping a girl earn a degree. Bhaiyaji and Maa Basanti held that education is complete only when it gives sanskar and discernment along with knowledge. In that spirit, Sanskar classes were arranged for the girls.

A scholarship being handed to a student
What the Sanskar classes did

With knowledge, discernment and responsibility

In the Sanskar classes, the girls were guided in Indian culture, moral values, discipline, a sense of duty, service, right conduct, spiritual reflection and a positive outlook.

1

Confidence

The girls grew in self-respect, in the ability to decide, and in the strength to face life's challenges with patience.

2

Sanskar

Respect for elders, responsibility towards family and sensitivity towards society took root.

3

Self-reliance

After higher study, many girls stood on their own feet and began to give their families both financial and emotional support.

4

Women's empowerment

The trust joined education to scholarship, scholarship to self-reliance, and self-reliance to responsibility.

From one girl to a whole family

Support whose effect reaches across generations

The chance one girl receives shapes not only her own life, but the direction of her family and the generations to come.

Opportunity

The road to higher education opened

Paths were cleared to higher and professional study — PhD, CA, engineering, MBA, MCA, B.Ed. and more.

Self-reliance

Girls standing on their own feet

Having completed their education, many girls became financially self-reliant and began to give their families stability.

Sanskar

Light in the family and in society

Many are today aware mothers, responsible members of their families, and women who inspire and contribute to the building of society and nation.

See some of these journeys, in real voices
True empowerment of women

A woman of knowledge, of sanskar, and of responsibility

Girls attending a Sanskar class

The greatest achievement of the Maa Shardamani Trust is just this: it has joined education to scholarship, scholarship to self-reliance, and self-reliance to sanskar and responsibility.

The aim here is not merely to educate a girl, but to shape a woman who is learned and also well-formed, confident and also humble, self-reliant and also responsible towards her family and society.

This is the real purpose of education, and this is the true empowerment of women.

A stream of Nishkam Karma

Where education becomes opportunity, and opportunity a way of seeing life.

The Maa Shardamani Trust carries forward the spirit of Bhaiyaji and Maa Basanti, in which education, sanskar and self-reliance together become the ground of society's whole development.

See Nishkam Karma Sadhana Read about the Sanskar classes Read the guiding principles

Registration & transparency

This is a registered public trust (under section 12A of the Income Tax Act). Its registration documents and year-wise audited financial reports from 2019–20 onward are publicly available on the transparency page.

See the documents