Education

The Kusuma Ratna Fellowship helps 300 bright higher secondary school students from underprivileged backgrounds to gain entrance into higher education courses, through the provision of a stipend, workshops on communication and life skills and mentoring support.

The Kusuma Udayan Shalini Fellowship gives assistance to 410 needy and exceptional teenage girls and young women to pursue higher education, with the goal of transforming them into true Shalinis (Dignified Women) and responsible world citizens, through the provision of a stipend and attendance at residential camps where they are taught life and social skills.

The Kusuma Young Achievers’ Award provides 1,200 meritorious students with financial and non-financial support to pursue higher education in the Warangal District of Andhra Pradesh, through the provision of annual course fees, tutorial support and career guidance.

The Mobile Science Laboratory project promotes a better understanding of scientific concepts among 25,754 government school students across 70 schools in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh. The students are given the opportunity to participate in science experiments within the classroom environment, which are led by visiting teachers who bring equipment to schools that have no science facilities or laboratories.

The Udaan and Pehchaan residential learning programmes at Sarvodaya Ashram, Hardoi, Uttar Pradesh. They deliver access to the formal education system for 542 girls and teenagers from poor and marginalised communities, who have not had the opportunity to attend or stay at school.  Udaan enables young girls at the primary school level to complete a bridge to middle school and Pehchaan enables older girls to complete middle school in order to get mainstreamed into secondary school.

The Kusuma School of Biological Sciences has been established in 2011 at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, to create and develop new teaching and research programmes at the under-graduate and post-graduate levels in biology, with an emphasis on infectious diseases and non-communicable disorders.

The Kusuma Mid-Day Meal project provides good quality meals to 14,000 underprivileged children via a public-private-partnership with the government in Nayargh, Orissa and Medak, Andhra Pradesh and. It aims to meet the children’s nutritional requirements and motivate the parents to send their children to school, thereby improving enrolment, attendance and academic performance.

The Mid-Day Meal Kitchen project will construct a centralised kitchen in Bhubaneshwar, Orissa in 2011-2012 and subsequently deliver mid-day meals to 100,000 children studying in government schools from 2012-2014.

Children At-Risk

In partnership with Sadhana, the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, the Juvenile Justice Department and UNICEF, The Trust is supporting the roll-out of Saarathi training for frontline workers in child welfare and development agencies in Andhra Pradesh. 

Kusuma Seva provides food, shelter, education and medical care to 20 orphaned and semi-orphaned children in Sambalpur, who reside together at a Vikash Vidyalaya Foundation home and are educated at a nearby government school.

Building Open Sharing Resources develops tools and practices that enable open sharing communities to collaborate globally, with the goal of creating open education, access to knowledge, free software, open access publishing and free culture communities around the world.

Research and Advocacy

Kusuma Young Researcher’s Award is a national competition which encourages academic research into the areas of social work, child development and education. The competition is open to Indian citizens under the age of 40 and especially to those in the fields of social sciences and humanities.

iPartner India advocates for and works to create a more just and equitable society in India, by providing a networking platform which links donors to charitable projects and effective initiatives.