Meet Vidhya from the Sowbhagya Educational Trust

Vidhya lives in Neelankarai, a suburb of Chennai along the coast. Her father Shanmugam works as a day laborer. Her mother's name is S.Saraswathi. She is studying at St.Joseph's Higher Secondary School in Vettuvankeni. Her favorite subject in school is Social Science, and she loves to dance. In her own words: "The person I most admire is: Thomas Alva Edison,for his invention of light. My favorite activity is: Speech and dance. I participate in all programmes in school.

Sowbhagya
Sowbhagya Educational Trust, founded in 1992, is a zero overhead, completely volunteer run organization based in Nilankarai, Chennai.

The educational trust was formed to provide education to the children of the fishing community of the villages in and around Nilankarai. Over the years the target population has expanded to include the daily wage laborers and construction workers in the neighboring areas. The trust supports formal education for children from Class Six through Polytechnic or Higher Education. Once the children graduate, the trust helps them in finding gainful employment.

The trust sponsors eight children every year, starting from Class Six and supports each child till the child completes his/her education and finds gainful employment. Each child is supported for ten to eleven years from the time they enter Class Six till the time they complete their college. The number of children supported by the trust has steadily increased, from twenty three children in 2001 to sixty three children in 2007. The children come from economically disadvantaged communities engaged in fishing, daily wage labour and the local construction industry and are often the first graduates in their families.

In 2006, seven students from the trust graduated college and successfully found employment. One of the students graduated with an Engineering Degree in Information Technology. Currently, there are seven students in the trust who are pursuing Engineering degrees in accredited colleges affiliated to Anna University in TamilNadu. The first Engineering graduate of the trust is now employed as a Systems Administrator with a software company in Chennai, after being supported by the trust for 11 years starting from his sixth grade.

The funds raised by the trust are used solely for the educational needs of the children, to provide books, uniforms and fees. Four teachers are employed to provide additional coaching for the students.


The trust is looking for contributions to it's corpus fund, so that it may continue it's 15 year service in providing education to financially disadvantaged children in the fishing, construction and unorganized labor communities.

100% of your contribution will go directly towards the education of one child - there are zero overheads in this completely volunteer run effort.