Most girls in rural Rajasthan cannot live their childhood. From early ages, they have to work in fields, fulfill household chores and bear responsibilities akin to an adult. If they attend school, their parents fear for their safety as they travel long distances by foot. Often as adolescents, they are married off, just to see their daughters facing the same sad fate they experience.

Sambhali Trust is an NGO focused on the development and empowerment of marginalized women and girls in Rajasthan. The Trust works throughout Jodhpur and the surrounding Thar Desert with women and children experiencing discrimination and violence daily due to economic, gender, and caste status.

At Sambhali Trust’s boarding homes marginalized girls can explore their capabilities and discover their unique talents. Through love and acceptance, emotional wounds are healed, and confidence is built. Girls learn to trust and believe in themselves and others. With this self-assurance, each girl can recognize and fulfill her potential.

Practically these goals are reached by providing:

Good academic education
The girls are enrolled in very good private schools or colleges. School-aged girls are provided daily help with homework to improve their success in academic studies. Extra computer tuition and weekly sewing classes are given as well as workshops on a variety of topics ranging from health and hygiene to legal rights, geography, and the environment.

Safe accommodation
Girls live in houses with ample space for learning and for growing as a community with the elementary and secondary school girls under the protection of a house mother and tutors. They learn about their right to be free from violence, how to recognize and take action against gender-based violence, and how to protect themselves through self-defense.

Develop their personality
Counseling, support and advice whenever required help to improve the girl’s self-confidence and ability to deal with their emotions, thoughts and concerns as they are growing up. Extracurricular activities help the girls to broaden their horizons, develop their interests, enhance practical, critical thinking and social skills as well as taking responsibility.

• Laadli Boarding Home is for 31 girls between the ages of 6-12 years. Here a sound base for their further education and development is laid.
• Sheerni Boarding Home provides 27 girls with secondary school education until 12th standard (final year in school).
• Abhayasthali Boarding Home is for young women who previously attended the Sheerni Boarding Home and are now attending college—the first women in their families to do so.
  At Abhayasthali, they form a community, cooking and taking care of their own daily needs, but with support from the Sambhali community to help them navigate college and study for important tests, as well as the opportunity to participate in Sambhali workshops and self-defense classes.

And because no child should be deprived of quality education because of lack of resources, Sambhali Trust annual scholarships to those in great need.