Sahiyar Hira Fellowship
Background
In the memory of Late Mrs. Hiralakshmi Chandrshanker Bhatt, her well wishers / friends / extended family are desirous of instituting a fellowship with “Sahiyar” for funding research, documentation, vocational education and support work through a fellowship scheme as laid down hereunder.
Corpus
Contributions will come into the bank account of “Sahiyar”, in tranches from different donors, March 2013 onwards, up to a period of two years. Sahiyar would keep them in separate fixed deposits (to be cumulative till such time as deemed appropriate), earmarked for the purpose of the above mentioned fellowship. The corpus when fully received is expected to be of the order of Rupees Ten Lakh only.
Activities
Fellowships (both short –term and medium term) would be given for the following purposes (indicative list):
- Women’s studies & documentation
- Micro finance feasibility studies
- Micro finance impact assessment studies
- Developing material for education
- Any other area falling under the mandate of Sahiyar or with permission of a committee (to be constituted as follows)
Modalities
1. Sahiyar would constitute a three member committee to administer the fellowship scheme. Committee would be chaired by Dr. (Ms) Trupti Shah and would have a nominee from the family of late Mrs Hiralakshmi Bhatt. Third member would be an independent expert to be appointed jointly by Sahiyar and the nominee from the family of Mrs. Hiralakshmi Bhatt.
2. Applications for the fellowship would be invited through announcements on notice boards in departments of Sociology / Social Work / Women’s studies in MS University and / or any other institution deemed appropriate by the said committee.
3. Short listing through interviews would be done by the said committee.
4. Monthly fellowship would be awarded from the interest to be received from the corpus fund, which would be in the range of Rs. 5,000/- to Rs. 8,000/- per month, as deemed appropriate.
5. The progress of the fellow’s work would be reported to the committee every quarter; and the committee would meet the fellow at least twice a year.
6. If any research / documentation work is of quality and worth discussing with respective constituents, committee may consider organizing a seminar based on the same.
The above arrangement of the corpus fund would be reviewed every five years or as warranted.
The Sahiyar Heera Fellowship was launched in 2014-15. Sahiyar's first research conducted was on Youth leadership training and its purpose and effects. Under Sahiyar Heera Fellowship research has been done on various topics thus far, in which different girls of MSW branch of Sahiyar MSW Vadodara have researched the workers of HDRC KMVS. The research points were as follows.
A research was conducted by Kriti Patel, an activist from KEM VS, in Kutch, on the opinions on gender issues and understanding of caste-based violence among girls and boys of Kutch.
Priyanka Christian of HD RC, Ahmedabad has researched a brief study of physiological issues affecting the Valmiki women engaged in sanitization work in the city of Ahmedabad.
Under Sahiyar Heera Fellowship, Khairunnisa of Pravaas, has researched the document on discrimination on social and political status of Muslim community. Research was done on different issues by five students of MSW department of Maharaja Sayajirao University during 2019. In which Drashti Solanki, Urvi Soni, Kajal Vasava, Mitali Dubey and Mansi Tolani presented their research whose topics were as follows.
1) perception of adolescence regarding child sexual abuse research by Drishti Solanki
2) a study on quality of life of transgender in Vadodara city research by urvi Soni
3) a study on health and menstrual hygiene practice among adolescent girl research by Kajal Vasava
4) consequences of early motherhood on physical health of women living in rural Gujarat research by Mitali Dubey
5) awareness and views of women regarding laws related to violence against women research by Mansi Tolani