The Samatvam Trust has the broad objective of equalizing access to knowledge across different strata of society. The long term objective of the Trust is to create an informed and compassionate citizenry capable of applying critical thinking methodologies to better address the challenges in their lives. While the Charter does not specifically require that Trust funding focuses on the girl child, the central role that women’s education plays in achieving social equality guides the actions of the Trustees.
To achieve this objective, the Trust will support existing entities registered in India that are working to improve some aspect of education. Trust support will be purely financial. To be clear, the Trust will not carry out or directly manage any of the efforts that it supports, rather it will enable the work of existing like-minded groups by providing financial support.
A critical operational function of the Board of Trustees will be to identify organizations whose goals and deeds are worthy of Trust support. There are likely to be very many such organizations and so the process of selecting recipients of Samatvam Trust funding should focus on organizations that have:
1. Goals that clearly support some aspect of education
2. No religious affiliation
3. No competing commitment for funding – for example, an educational NGO may also support causes outside education
4. A good track record
5. Leadership with integrity
6. Systems to transparently monitor use of funds
Educational support can be broadly divided into efforts to improve
• Educational Access and/or
• Educational Content
Improving Educational Access could include getting children to school, enabling classrooms, teacher training, improving nutrition for school going children, distance learning, adult education.
Improving Educational Content would include training in critical thinking methods with a focus on identifying bias and widening the world view of individuals to enable them to take a broader perspective of themselves and the society around them.
Operation of the Trust
The Trust will employ a full-time Manager whose goal will be to assist in the selection of potential Trust funding recipients and manage the relationships funded by the Trust as well as monitor the performance of these entities. The trust will be audited by a leading accounting firm.
