By Aditya Raj
Mumbai: “If a child in Silicon Valley can dream of changing the world, why not a child in Dharampur?” Pujya Gurudevshri Rakeshji once asked. Most students in the areas where his Shrimad Rajchandra Mission Dharampur works are first-generation learners, whose parents often have not had the chance to see what education can unlock. The Mission has built an education ladder meant to take these children from school to university and into jobs.
School and college in tribal Gujarat
In Dharampur, Shrimad Rajchandra Gurukul, a secondary and higher secondary school, is opening a new 90,000 sq ft campus for over 700 students, alongside Shrimad Rajchandra Chhatralaya, a hostel for over 200 students from surrounding villages.
Shrimad Rajchandra Vidyapeeth, a science college in Dharampur, was set up after local communities identified a shortage of science-focused higher education in the Dharampur and Kaprada areas. It offers undergraduate programmes in Chemistry, Microbiology, Botany and Mathematics, and postgraduate courses in Chemistry and Microbiology, so that local students no longer have to leave the region to study science.
Money is often the final barrier. Through its Vidya Vikas Yojana, the Mission offers merit-cum-means scholarships and interest-free education loans to students pursuing higher and technical education, primarily in Valsad and Navsari districts.
At the top of the ladder, construction is under way on Shrimad Rajchandra Sarvamangal University in Dharampur, which the Mission describes as an effort to build “the Harvard of rural India.”
Skills for new-age jobs
In Mumbai, the Mission has been entrusted with the Government Industrial Training Institute through a public-private partnership. The 14-acre campus is the city’s largest skilling centre. The Mission manages the institute, sets its curriculum and is adding a Shrimad Rajchandra Centre for Advanced Training, with courses in electric vehicles, solar energy, robotics and AI, as the campus moves toward a capacity of 4,000 students.
The Mission also runs the Shrimad Rajchandra School for Special Needs Children in Mumbai, a school and skill development centre for children with autism, Down syndrome and other needs.
A digital career guide
At Aho Gurudev, the Mission presented Shrimad Rajchandra DISHA, the Digital Initiative for Students’ Holistic Advancement. The free, AI-powered platform, supported by the Government of India, offers psychometric assessments and personalised paths across more than 1,600 careers, aimed at students who have no access to career counselling.
Beyond India
The Shrimad Rajchandra Classroom of Change supports 60 under-served Title-1 schools in the United States, reaching over 25,000 students. Mission Africa runs 200 schools and 20 computer labs and libraries, serves 70,000 mid-day meals a day and operates five vocational institutes. The Mission has also adopted a school in Lima, Peru, and two villages in the Philippines, Real and Paete, each with a school and a livelihood centre.
Born in Mumbai on September 26, 1966, Pujya Gurudevshri Rakeshji brought an academic’s rigour to spiritual life. He earned an M.A. in Philosophy with a gold medal and, in 1998, a doctorate from the University of Mumbai for his research on Shri Atmasiddhi Shastra by Shrimad Rajchandraji. He was later conferred an honorary Doctor of Divinity by the Claremont School of Theology. He founded the Mission in 1994 and established its international headquarters at Dharampur in 2001.
The Mission’s education initiatives were unveiled at Aho Gurudev, the two-day celebration of his 60th birth anniversary at Mumbai’s Jio World Convention Centre, attended by thousands from 24 countries, where 60 initiatives in seva and spiritual growth were announced.
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