I was happy to be contacted by Saanjh, a Sikh organization in California’s Bay Area that aims to support Sikh students and professionals:

Saanjh – meaning ‘partnering, sharing, connecting’ in Punjabi, is the annual Bay Area Sikh retreat. This year, Saanjh will be held from Sept 8^th – Sept 11^th at the magnificent Monte Toyon campsite near Santa Cruz, CA. We seek to provide a platform where Sikhs can gather to connect with the Guru and the sangat to inspire each other and reinvigorate their commitment to Sikhi.

One of their projects is the Saanjh Sikh Scholarship:

Saanjh Sikh Scholarship’s mission is to work with parents, students, and community members to encourage higher education for Sikh students in California and Texas by providing need-based and merit-based financial scholarships to selected students entering undergraduate studies.

The scholarship is run “by university students for university students”, and in the past two years the program has awarded over $13,000 in scholarships to recipients in California and Texas.  Applicants for the scholarship are evaluated on the following:

• Student’s desire to grow in Sikhi
• Student’s desire and ability to grow through her/his undergraduate education
• Student’s financial need
• Student’s commitment to an alternate career (careers in which Sikhs are traditionally underrepresented)
• Student’s dedication to humanity through Seva

I was interested to find out that this summer, Saanjh awarded scholarships to five students:

The Saanjh Sikh Scholarship would like to announce its 2011 recipients, five high school seniors from California and Texas entering institutions of higher education. The 2011 Scholars are Navjot Kaur (UCLA), Amandeep Singh (UC Davis), Mankushpreet Kaur (UC Davis) , Ramnik Kaur (U of Texas), and Harjeet Kaur (U of Texas).

These students were selected on the merit of their academic and extracurricular accomplishments as well as their commitment to seva, Sikhi, and potential for leadership as young Sikh American citizens.

As a volunteer organization, Saanjh’s goals to promote and encourage the next generation of Sikh leaders in this country are admirable and commendable.  For the upcoming year, they plan to expand the scholarship to more states as they find volunteers.  To that end, they can be reached at saanjhscholarship@gmail.com.