Empowering Underprivileged Girls Through Education and Skill Building

Every year in Tamil Nadu, thousands of talented young women from underprivileged families leave school with outstanding achievement in academics and sports. Do they go on to achieve highly in college, earn a degree and make a better life for themselves and their families? No. The sad reality is that they typically fall off the academic ladder and enter a life of manual labour, or get married off at an early age and slowly give up on their dreams, simply because a college education is beyond their means. Even if they do join college, a large number of these girls remain unemployed because of lack of English language skills, social skills or life skills.

At Pudumai Penn, we want to change that.

We are an NGO that aims to create a positive impact in young women’s lives by supporting talented young women to pay their college fees, and coaching, mentoring and supporting them to render them ready for employment and financial independence. Read more about our work at www.pudumaipenn.org.

The Pudumai Penn foundation supports young women through four key areas of work:

Academic Scholarships

Three to five years financial assistance programme to cover tuition fees of qualifying girls who have passed their 12th standard board examination, so they can obtain university degree of their choice and plan a career in that. Scholarships are awarded in 3 categories. : Under graduate, Professional education like engineering , medicine, CA etc. and also Sports scholarships for those who are aiming to specialise in individual sports.

Structured Learning Intervention

During their college years, they are also trained in English language, digital media in their first year to enable them to gain part time employment. 2nd and 3rd year are focussed on Life skills. The programme aims to draw out their innate potential and to create employable graduates who employers will queue up to select and offer the best salaries. Our Library and Book reading sessions inculcate reading habits to improve their General Knowledge.

Computer Proficiency Training

Computer proficiency at our own customer build centre in Chennai provide training in typical applications used in office environment , internet search and commerce applications to facilitate part time jobs during their college years.

Placement

Special sessions on writing resumes, interviews and group discussions in their final year enable them to perform well in campus interviews. We also support in getting internships for students pursuing professional courses like IT, CA, etc. Plans are on to invite corporate sector to conduct interviews in our premises once the number of students increases.

In May 2019 The Foundation will complete 5 years which is a proud moment for the Foundation members, volunteers and students.

- From 8 girls in 2014, we support over 90 girls today.

- 7 scholars from the initial batch and 21 scholars from the subsequent batch have graduated securing B.Sc., B.Com, BCA, B Pharm, Engineering and other Academic degrees.

- In the previous year alone we conducted ten soft skill workshops and 2 Expert talk sessions for our scholars. Apart from these, 36 scholars underwent digital training classes and 28 completed the STEP English Language training program offered by The Hindu.

- Our structured learning programs as outlined above have immensely improved the Employability skills of our scholars and many of the graduates have secured jobs in Leading Global organizations such as Accenture, TCS, Cognizant and HCL among others. Some have opted for further studies.

- Our sports scholars have made us proud by winning medals in multiple meets both at state level and national level.

With ongoing support from our donors we believe that we can help a lot more underprivileged girls in the years to come.