“ Since the start of SPAITF programme, the committee have so far supported almost 229 individual young students...”
Engineering, Medicine, Electrical Engineering, Civil Engineering, Nursing, Physiotherapy, Science, Optometry, just to name a few.
In October 2015, the committee considered a total of 20 applications; approved 14 and rejected 6 applications. A total grant of £ 2,525 from NTF endowment and £ 200 from the Education Fund was made.
In March 2016 the committee considered a total of 20 applications; approved 14 and rejected 6 applications. A total grant of £ 2,450 from NTF endowment and £ 250 from the Education Fund was made.
Challenges Like any grant giving organisation we do have our challenges, such as monitoring, publicity, duplication of funding and documentation.
• Monitoring- we believe this would remain to be a challenge for the time being, but we have introduced some new questions to ensure that the application is genuine.
• Publicity- we have deliberately not pursued this area as we need to balance the availability of funds at our disposal to possible demand if we publicise the grant plan widely. With a degree of confidence, we have received reports from trustees who travel regularly to India that a good majority of our community are aware of SPAITF grant programme.
• Duplication of funding- it came to light that few individuals also applied to Shree Prajapati Education Foundation( SPEF) administered by Prajapati members in Canada and as a result SPAITF committee have agreed to formally develop‘ Memorandum of Understanding’ with SPEF, with the view to reducing duplication and to spread our limited funds by supporting more applications.
• The‘ On-line application’ process is proving to be much better as all applicants have to answer the same questions and it is easier to manage. The time spent on processing applications has dramatically reduced and has made it easy to follow up with individual applicants and cut our postage down by some 95 % and speed of communication is much better.
Reasons for unsuccessful applications It is important to inform our members of some of the reasons for rejecting / not supporting applicants for example:
• Some individuals do not disclose all the information needed in order for the committee to assess their application and as a result they are not supported.
• Further clarification is required on the loan the applicant takes out.
• Lack of correct declaration.
• Evidence is not provided to clarify if applicants have received any funding from other organisations in India, Canada or from relatives.
• We ask for additional information and applicants fail to respond.
• We have received a number of applications from those seeking funding for their Master’ s degree which SPAITF do not fund and therefore do not meet our funding criteria.
• Clarification required of parental income and tuition fees, etc. vol. 41 | Prajapati Sandesh 2016 23