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Category: Scholarship

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5 Years of Deepam Venkatachalam-Kalyani scholarship

In October 2021, a long term active volunteer at Deepam – Venkat, came up with the idea of supporting deserving college students through a scholarship.

Over the last 5 years, Venkat has always ensured the scholarship is funded, right at the start of the new financial year. The scholarship paid the college fee for a less-privileged student, for the year. It was named after his living parents. His patience to see through the scholarship process has helped ensure highly deserving students are beneficiaries.

The 1st beneficiary of this scholarship, Priyadarshini, was the 1st college graduate in the family. Her dad is an autodriver and could not afford to pay her college fee. She is now working as a software engineer at Zoho in Chennai. Her feedback is here

The scholarship team—Vasanthi mam, Lalitha mam, Abhishek, Prasanna, RR Sir, and others—has been instrumental in selecting the right beneficiaries and maintaining the program’s impact.

There is something powerful about everyone working together toward one clear goal: finding and supporting students who truly need help. This scholarship has a special way of finding the right people and changing their lives for the better.

 

Blog, Scholarship

DEEPAM Venkatachalam – Kalyani Scholarship 2025-26

Deepam Venkatachalam-Kalyani Scholarship for the year 2025-26 is awarded to Priyadarshini & this is her story.

Priyadarshini currently studies 2nd year B Com at a college* in Chennai. When she got in touch with Deepam in her 2nd year – her situation was fragile. Her dad passed away when she was 7 years (after abandoing the family). Her mom solely brought her and her sister up. Her mom earned a meagre income through her work as a child minder. She studied in a government school all through.

She joined college, through a loan that her mom had arranged. That paid her 1st semester fee. But she couldn’t pay her 2nd semester fee and wasn’t allowed to write her exams.

Her mom unfortunately, passed away earlier this year. It was at this juncture that Deepam scholarship team got introduced to her. Her 2nd year fee was due. Deepam Scholarships team immediately organised to pay her fee.

Despite all the challenges, Priyadarshini has shown a lot of courage and determination to keep finding a way. She & her younger  sister currently live with her grandparents. Her grandfather works as a coolie and his daily wages helps provide for the family. They live in a rented house as well.

To support her family, Priyadarshini started to work at a cafe near her house from 1 pm to 10 pm, post college hours on weekdays. On weekends, she works all day – to earn some money to support her grandparents. With the last semester exams and the current semester exams to clear and her days filled with work, she hardly finds any time to study. She carries her books to work and during the lean times at the cafe, she finds a little time to study.

Academically, her scores were not high. However, she is determined & hopeful of finding a way. Deepam scholarships will continue to support her through her college journey. In addition, we are exploring additional ways to support her.

Blog, Scholarship

DEEPAM Venkatachalam – Kalyani Scholarship

DEEPAM Scholarships was launched formally in early 2021, to provide financial support & guidance to less-priveleged students. This support can be utilised for college education (mostly) and also for school education.

Today, Deepam Scholarships team is excited to announce a new collaboration program – a scholarship program that can be instituted by any donor – an individual or family, in the name of their loved ones. This scholarship can be named to honour a living person or can be commemorative as well. This annual scholarship makes a direct impact by supporting a deserving student(s).

DEEPAM Venkatachalam-Kalyani Scholarship

As a 1st in this series, DEEPAM Venkatachalam-Kalyani Scholarship is instituted by Venkat on 18th October 2021, to honour his living parents – Mr.Venkatachalam & Mrs.Kalyani.

In his own words, Venkat says – “For my father who is more righteous than any person I have seen and my mother who is benevolent towards all life, this scholarship is a tribute from their son for a cause that we all believe in. There is nothing more important than education today.

Mr.Venkatachalam & Mrs.Kalyani

Education is the only thing that will help us break shackles and scale barriers.

Having worked with Deepam for many years, we find no better place to start doing our little bit when all of us are alive and well ”

DEEPAM Venkatachalam-Kalyani Scholarship will be an annual scholarship given to deserving less-priveleged students, to support their education goals. This scholarship currently provides Rs 25,000 towards the college/school fee of deserving students. The annual scholarship amount is likely to increase in the coming years.

Priyadarshini Prakash – 1st Recipient

For the year 2021, the scholarship is awarded to Priyadarshini Prakash – Priya has scored over 95% in both her class 10 & class 12. Her college education fee is supported in part through this scholarship

DEEPAM is thankful to Venkat & his family for initiating this new scholarship program  – This initiative opens a lot of opportunties to deserving students.

If you wish to institute a scholarship in the name of your loved ones, please contact DEEPAM – [email protected]

Blog, Scholarship

Deepam Scholarships

Every child deserves education – The basic requirement for gaining knowledge. Education is one of the fundamental supports that a child needs to become a productive adult. Many children don’t even get a chance at school education. Some don’t have the financial backing to go to college.

It is Deepam’s vision to see every child get a real opportunity at life – through school & college education. Deepam aims to support deserving children by providing them scholarships.

In 2020, thanks to numerous Deepam’s donors – 12 deserving children were awarded need-scholarship by Deepam

Deepam Scholarships 2020

The criteria used at Deepam to award the scholarships are (this may change over time)

  1. Are the children, from a less-privileged background? What do their parents do?
  2. Are they the 1st in their family to enter the school / college system? Are they 1st generation learners?
  3. What do their school / college teachers have to say about their attitude towards learning?
  4. (Optional) Do any of Deepam’s volunteers know them? What is their feedback?
  5. Usually, at this stage, their acadamic performance is not strictly considered for scholarships. Academic performance can be a limiting factor, given the background of the student. We do however, encourage the student to keep improving.
  6. How will this scholarship be utilised? Deepam requires fee receipts and communication from school / college

If you know any deserving students who are in need of money to pay their college fees / school expenses, please do send the details by email to [email protected]

Blog, Scholarship

Deepam Scholarship

Team,
Nanmai.org has come forward to support deserving students for their 
education. Criteria and other stuffs as below
Criteria 
——–
1) Should be part of ‘Deepam’ and should have attended minimum 10 classes 
2) Should be studying above 9th std
3) Should have decent academic record (above 70%)
4) Should prove their economic need
5) Would be nice if the student has some refernce like shool prinicpal
About Nanmai 
————–
1) nanmai.org is one who are looking to sponser this scholarship 
2) Nanmai would provide 50% of fees/year (75% fees/year if the 
background is really poor) 
3) Nanmai would also provide them with necessary books and notebooks. 
4) Nanmai will not provide any cash as such. We need to list of 
things required and they would provide 
What we need to do
——————-
1) We need to select 10 students matching above criteria
2) Students can be from any centres
3) Would be nice if there is atleast one from each centre
4) Identify such candidates and let me know
5) We have quite a bit of opertional stuff to follow, we can do that once we identify candidates.
Note: It is already early June, we need to hurry up.
-Bhargav