The Pudumai Penn foundation aims to honour India’s rich heritage by stimulating the holistic development of young Indian women into empowered economic and social contributors.
Vision and Mission
Subrahmania Bharathi, the great Tamil poet, patriot and social reformer, called to the Indian nation to emancipate its women. Bharathi realized that if Indian women are freed and given the gift of education, they could soar to great heights.
The Pudumai Penn Foundation aspires to achieve Bharathi’s vision. We will serve as a catalyst, helping to impart career and life skills to women coming from underprivileged sections of society, helping them improve their economic and social status over the long term.
I firmly believe that when you nurture a young woman, her whole family will benefit, in turn creating and fostering future generations who contribute usefully to society as a whole and play a positive role in it. I hope you too will be inspired and join us one day.
Vanaja Arvind, Founding Trustee
Vision
Pudumai Penn envisions an India characterised as much by its new generation of emancipated women leading in every global index of gender development as much as it is by its economic and demographic potential.
Our vision is to empower the young women of India by fostering all round life skills to achieve personal excellence, career aspirations, economic independence and social impact. We aim to impart knowledge and provide opportunities to learn, especially to those less fortunate, so that they may become equal contributors to overcoming individual, social and economic challenges.
Mission
We aim to create a positive impact in young women’s lives by:
- Helping them successfully acquire a qualification in their chosen field of education, so that they can fulfill their career ambitions and gain financial independence
- Coaching, mentoring and supporting them in order to create a strong, confident younger generation
- Creating a variety of replicable, scalable and creative tools and processes to make this a self-sustaining movement
Our Objectives
- To enable Pudumai Penn to attain financial independence through skill development for improving their employability, income levels and career opportunities. Nurture them to aspire higher and support them in that endeavor
- To encourage aspirations of young girls to excel in the field of sports by providing them financial assistance for training in the chosen sports area
- To assist Pudumai Penn to identify their chosen areas of study / skill development objectives / career ladder examinations etc. and provide financial assistance for tuition fees and other related expenses so they qualify and find suitable placements
- Conduct training aimed at increasing the level of financial literacy. This will help them for opening bank accounts, availing bank credit facilities/micro financing assistance, managing their income/expense accounts. In deserving cases, assistance will be extended for them to avail financing from banks for any small venture they want to promote
- Create awareness about good nutrition, basic hygiene and fitness routines. Also, the role and importance of good health for themselves and their families
- Impart knowledge on their legal status and rights and empower them. Train them in basic self-defense techniques, safety tactics to help them ward off external abuse and domestic violence (through dowry, alcoholism, etc.)
- Develop entrepreneurial and managerial skills for those who aspire to strike out on their own to run Self Help groups/home/cottage/small industries
- Train Pudumai Penn on social skills in terms of effective communication, good etiquette, conversation, politics/economics basics
- Inculcate ethics, values and sensitivity to others to enable them to become responsible citizens of India