His Highness's Trusts

Jodhpur district lies amidst the Thar Desert. Like inhabitants of most deserts in the world, people of the Thar even in the 21st Century live with medieval thoughts and jealously guard their way of life and are not easily open to modern thoughts. This has resulted in low literacy rate with women generally remaining illiterate. Not only that, women generally remain deprived, dependant on the male generosity. To improve the quality of life for women, an agreement was signed with the Global Foundation for Humanity, UK & USA to launch an innovative project called Rajdadiji Veerni Project in 16 villages located around Jodhpur city. This is an autonomous project being run under the guidance of the Advisory Council comprising of representatives of the Global Foundation for Humanity & the Trust officials with His Highness Maharaja of Jodhpur as the Patron-in-Chief. The Project is being executed under the auspices of Her Highness Rajdadiji Smt. Badan Kanwar Medical Trust with some of the activities being carried out by His Highness Maharaja Hanwant Singhji Charitable Trust.

The main objective of the Veerni Project is ‘empowerment of women’ through awareness, education and making them self reliant through income generation activities. Project activities focused on health to include pre & post natal care, family planning & nutrition; general awareness about their rights and duties, promoting education & capacitating them to generate income through hobbies and crafts. Group activities through self Help Groups are encouraged.

It was felt that to empower the next generation of women, the adolescent girls must be educated. Accordingly, literacy centers in villages were opened with a view to help girls obtain secondary school level education as private students. We were able to motivate the parents and girls to take full advantage of the scheme. During 2005, the members of the Advisory Council felt that rural girls from these villages should be given an opportunity for schooling. Realising the parents concern about the security of girls, it was decided to start Veerni Girls Hostel at BZS School, Jodhpur. After successful negotiations with the BZS School & the BZS Society which manages the School, the Hostel was started during the Academic Session 2005-06 with 39 girls from Veerni villages.

Considering that all girls admitted had not attended regular schools, results obtained were satisfactory as tabulated hereunder:-

Class	Number Appeared	Passed	Failed
V	1	1	-
VI	5	3	2
VII	4	3	1
VIII	4	1	3
IX	8	3	5
X	12	4	8
XI	-	-	-
XII	3	3	-
College	2	2	-
	39	20	19

Having successfully started a hostel, the Advisory Council, decided to further expand the programme. For the new academic session it was decided to increase the hostel capacity to 60 girls. It was further decided to introduce an entrance examination for admission and if vacancies are not filled from Veerni villages, admission will be open to other villages as well. Under the revised policy, the hostel strength is tabulated as under:-

Whereas the Project functions as guardian, the hostel is managed by the School. However, close monitoring & supervision is done by the Project. In addition, the Project organizes extra tuition classes, sewing classes in the afternoon, and morning PT & evening sporting activities under their own arrangements. Some outings are also organized by the Project.

The Project pays all fee, including hostel expenses and provides books and stationery as also school uniforms. To ensure that parents do not suffer from loss of self-respect, they may donate any amount, as considered appropriate to their economic status.

Admission is open to anyone from rural areas of Jodhpur Dist without any discrimination to caste, religion or colour of skin for class VI upwards. Even those girls who wish to attend university classes may apply. They will have to appear and pass a written entrance examination. Priority for admission will be given to girls from villages adopted by the Veerni Project.

Educational cum recreational excursions for the girls are organized by Veerni Project. Such excursions acquaint the students with our rich heritage and broaden their horizon.