Support-A-Girl and our Scholarship programme are the heart of Sneha Karma Foundation's Girls' Education focus area. Support-A-Girl keeps a girl in school by covering the real, full cost of her education — tuition, uniforms, books, a nourishing midday meal, healthcare and mentorship — so that poverty can never be the reason she stops learning. Our Scholarship programme takes over at the point where most support ends: it carries that same girl beyond school and into higher education, so that the cost of the next step never ends her journey. Together they form a single, continuous path from the classroom to college.
Sneha Karma Foundation is a 501(c)(3) public charity (EIN 47-3774368; California entity no. C3783680) founded in 2016 and dedicated to empowering underprivileged girls and women in India. We work directly with families and schools, which keeps our cost per girl low and our outcomes accountable. More than 600 girls have been supported across our programmes.
The families we serve are not indifferent to education; they are constrained by cost. When money is short, the school fee, the uniform, the books and the meal are the first things cut, and for a girl the cut is permanent. A single missed year becomes a withdrawal, a withdrawal becomes domestic work, and domestic work becomes early marriage. The cost that ends a girl's education is rarely large in absolute terms — it is simply larger than a household living close to the margin can bear.
The second, less visible gap is the transition after school. Girls who beat the odds and complete secondary education then stop, because the fees, living costs and lost income of college are beyond reach. The result is a generation of young women whose education stops exactly where it would begin to pay. Closing that transition gap is among the highest-return interventions available: a girl who reaches higher education earns dramatically more over her lifetime, and her daughters will be educated too.
To ensure that financial hardship never ends a girl's education — keeping at-risk girls enrolled through school and enabling them to continue into and complete higher education.
1. Identify and enrol girls at genuine risk of dropping out, using school and community referral. 2. Cover the full cost of schooling — tuition, uniforms, books, midday meal, healthcare, and exam fees — for each supported girl for the full academic year. 3. Provide regular mentorship and academic support so that supported girls progress rather than merely attend. 4. Carry successful school completers into higher education through scholarships covering fees and living costs. 5. Track each girl by name through enrolment, attendance, examination results and progression to the next stage.
Girls aged roughly 6–18 at risk of dropping out, and school completers aged 18–22 seeking higher education, in the rural and forest-edge communities of eastern India, including the villages around the Garbhanga Reserve Forest. Beneficiaries are selected on demonstrated need and risk, with priority to first-generation learners and girls from the most marginal households.
Support-A-Girl begins with identification: schools and community champions tell us who is at risk and why. We then assemble a per-girl package covering every cost that would otherwise force a withdrawal, paid directly to schools and suppliers wherever possible to keep funds accountable. Each girl is matched with a mentor who provides academic encouragement and a point of contact when problems arise at home or school. Attendance and results are reviewed through the year, and problems are addressed early rather than at year-end. On completion of school, girls who wish to continue are assessed for our Scholarship programme, which meets the fees and living costs of their next course so the transition is not lost.
We expect supported girls to remain enrolled through the year, to improve their attendance and examination results, and to progress to the next stage at far higher rates than unsupported peers. The wider impact compounds: educated girls marry later, earn more, raise healthier children, and become the first generation in their families to expect education for a daughter. Beyond school, scholarships produce graduates, and graduates produce role models in villages that previously had none.
Every girl is tracked by name against enrolment, attendance, and exam outcomes, and scholarship recipients against course completion and employment. We compare supported girls to community baselines and review results each academic year. Where a girl still falls behind, we record why and adapt support — extra tuition, a mentor change, a conversation with the family.
The model is deliberately simple and cheap per girl, which makes it both sustainable and replicable. It requires no buildings and no heavy overheads, and it scales one girl at a time. Its durability comes from its results: girls who complete their education become the strongest possible argument for supporting the next girl.
Budget available on request. Indicative allocation: roughly 60% direct per-girl costs (fees, uniforms, books, meal, health, exam fees), 15% scholarships for higher education, 15% mentorship and academic support, and 10% monitoring, evaluation and administration.
This is the most direct, measurable way to change a girl's life: remove the cost that would end her education, and stay with her until she finishes. Donors see exactly where their money goes — a named girl, a full year of school, and the step after it.
The principal risk to this project is household disruption — illness, a bad harvest, or a death in the family — that pulls a girl out despite our support. Because we visit households and track each girl by name, we usually see the warning signs early and can respond with a targeted top-up rather than losing the girl. A second risk is that support ends too soon. Our rule is to fund the full cost for the full academic year and to plan the next step before the current one ends, so a girl is never lost in the gap between school and college — the gap where most well-meant education programmes quietly give up. A third is that a scholarship is awarded but the girl's course does not lead anywhere; we therefore favour courses with a clear progression to employment or further study, and we stay in contact with scholarship recipients until they complete.