This collective experience helped us in getting exposed to a whole community of children who are missing an opportunity to pursue higher education. To be able to better reach-out to the students in need of support, we formalized and registered ourselves as trust in 2002.
Friends of Children Trust has till date reached out to nearly 300 students, and we’re proud to note that several of them have been placed in good positions. Funds for our activities are raised through friends and personal contacts. All financial contributions to the trust are exempt from Income Tax exemption for 50% of the amount u/s 80G of IT Act, 1961.
There are a few distinct parameters of our focus, which we have captured below.
Supporting Higher Education: Continuing education after Class 10 is a key to bringing in significant and lasting change to the quality of living in the students’ families. Apart from improving their earnings prospects, students pursuing higher education are instrumental in encouraging other siblings in the family to do well, and are able to spread the message of education around them.
Personal Mentoring: We have believed and also realised that mentoring students and spending time with them is critical to their progress. Our aim is to be much more than a funding organisation, and therefore we try to provide the students as much personal attention as possible.
Placing need ahead of marks: We have consciously not made marks a criteria for supporting a student, and focussed on the need and inclination. If there are opportunities for higher education, we try to ensure that they are fully utilised by our students, regardless of their scores.
Focus on Girl Child: Education for girls is a decisive tool to change the shape of their future. More than 90% of our students are girls, and it is heartening to see some of the positive impact that education has brought to their lives.
Our Team
Individuals from various professions, offer their time towards management & implementation of our programs. We have no employees – only volunteers drive the organization. Volunteers execute all of our activities: fund-raising, home visits for student identification, teaching and mentoring, conducting outings, personality development activities, etc.
Importantly, a few of our ex-students have returned as volunteers and are helping us immensely in our activities. This has been a major shot-in-the-arm for us.
We are proud to be associated with many individuals organizations who identify with our vision and support us in various ways. An incomplete list would comprise Prerana – Pratibha Poshak, Graduate Finishing School (Mysore), Friends of Children – Pune, Dream School Foundation, iQuest Adventures, Prof. Baluragi, Mr. Anil Birla, and many others.