USF aims at providing constant mentor-ship & leadership development to the selected girls. Udayan Shalini Fellowships derives its name from conjoining two Sanskrit words “Udayan” and “Shalini” Meaning eternal sunrise and a dignified woman respectively. It thus symbolises an eternal sunrise to a dignified life for a girl, who otherwise would have fallen out on the way. Udayan Shalini Fellowships pr
ogramme of Udayan Care is a unique academic excellence and personality development programme for deserving and talented girls from weak socio-economic background aiming to turn them into empowered and dignified women or Shalini's. Each Fellow stays in the programme till she finishes her course, which is an average period of 5-6 years
Its uniqueness lies in the fact that it goes beyond being a usual scholarship programme by not only supporting higher education but also providing regular mentoring and leadership development and inculcating a sense of social responsibility to the selected talented girls. The programme aims at four major objectives:
1. To provide financial support to deserving but needy girl students from government schools to enable them to continue their study.
2. To provide individual attention, counselling and grooming through mentoring to girls to assure their overall mental and moral development.
3. To provide opportunity to widen their horizon of knowledge on various fields like career choices, social issues and personality development
4. To develop social sensitivity so that they give back to society once they become independent and start earning. The Fellows are selected through a time tested elaborate system based on the basic criteria of Need, Ambition and Talent (NAT), designed with the help of the core committee of this programme which comprises of experienced educationists - This includes an application process, written test, interview and home visits. Once a girl is screened and selected, she is called an Udayan Shalini Fellow (Shalini). A unique feature of the Udayan Shalini Fellowship programme is the component of Mentoring. It follows a Pyramidal Structure of Mentoring where, fellows from schools are attached to mentor didis who are the past grantees of the USF and senior educationists, who act as Mentors. They motivate and guide the Fellows towards greater achievements and realizing their dreams and career decisions. After two years of receiving mentoring, our Fellows, when they complete school and go to Colleges, they become peer mentors under the guidance of their mentors to the new identified fellows. Udayan Care firmly believes that its Fellows must start giving back to society at the same time as they receive help. They must not be passive recipients of others’ charity and should become involved in the process of being sensitive and responsible citizens from the beginning. Towards this, the programme has a component of 50 hours of obligatory social work for them. Udayan Shalini Fellowships has grown from supporting just 72 girls in 2002 in Delhi, in the last 12 years of its running, the programme has impacted over 3500 girls through holding 13 batches in Delhi, 9 in Kurukshetra, 7 in Kolkata,7 in Aurangabad, 7 in Dehradun, 3 in Haridwar, 3 in Gurgaon, 3 in Phagwara, 2 in Jaipur and now starting in Hyderabad. There are more than 130 mentors including alumnae fellows. Many of the Fellows have gone on to pursue prestigious careers as Engineers, Doctors, professionals, CAs, Scientists besides other courses. Based on the success and tremendous response to the programme and with systems and processes clearly outlined, we now plan to reach out to at least 2 new cities with Fellowships reaching out to a total of 5600 Fellows or Shalinis by 2017.
