ABOUT DIVYAM FOUNDATION EDUCATIONAL TRUST
Working towards upliftment of students and women since 2015.
OUR STORY
DFET started in 2015, when Archana Ranganathan along with a small group of volunteers began organising education sessions in Chennai. What began as a handful of people teaching in a borrowed classroom grew, over the following years, into a registered organisation running programs through the year in Tamilnadu. We’re growing with dedicated volunteers and members that our founding team knows most of the families we work with by name—that’s something we’d like to keep true even as we grow.
Started as a simple centre for education in 2015, then recognised as one of India’s leading education, edsupport, training and women empowerment organisations.
OUR MISSION
We work on four things—education, empowerment, employability and entrepreneurship—thereby enabling economic upliftment. In the communities we serve, these areas tend to move together with communal support. A student stays in school more easily when their family is building financial independence. A woman can attend skill training more easily when her children have somewhere safe to be in the meantime and getting education for the future. We try to design programs around that overlap, rather than treating each issue as separate.
HOW WE WORK
We work with communities and prepare the community for the change they are going to see. We set their expectations at the same time to enable them for economic benefits.
We don’t run donation drives that are disconnected from an actual program on the ground—every rupee raised is tied to a named project with a field coordinator responsible for it. We publish fund utilisation reports and expect donors to ask us for specifics; we’d rather answer a hard question than lose someone’s trust. And we hire locally wherever we can, because local staff already carry the trust and context that an outside team would take years to build.
TRANSPARENCY & TRUST
Divyam Foundation Educational Trust is registered as a Trust under Indian law, holds 12A registration (income tax exemption for the organisation) and 80G certification (tax deduction for donors) with CSR-1. Full registration documents and our latest audited accounts are available on request—write to us at reachus@divyam.org.
THE PEOPLE BEHIND THE WORK
DFET is run by a small core team, supported by field coordinators in each of our project locations, a volunteer network, and an advisory board that reviews our finances and program decisions twice a year.
Founder and Managing Trustee
Hailing from Tamilnadu with Global perspective of Improving Education and Women Empowerment.
BCA, PGDHRM, MA Education Administration. Certified in Women Leadership from the University of Oxford. Diploma in Child Psychology, certified in Phonics (UK), Life Skills (Singapore). CCIS, CCA certified by ICC UK.
Trustee
