Chirag Foundation

Chirag Foundation started as the ‘Kargil Trust’ in the year 2000 to support the children and widows of the Kargil War at JRC Bareilly. In the year 2009, in order to enhance the scope of the program, the ‘Kargil Trust’ was converted to ‘Chirag Foundation’ to support the education of children, especially girls, from socio-economically underprivileged sections of our society. A School that we have supported for many years is Salma Public School in Rataul, in District Baghpat, UP. Salma Public School was started in 1993 by Prof. Zahoor Siddiqui and his wife, a gentle retired couple, a picture of total commitment and dedication, to provide secular education to build citizens of modern India. Salma Public School began with 30 students and two teachers in 1993. It now has 500+ students in grades up to class five and 16 teachers and 1000s of proud alumni. Of the current students, over 200 are girls, significant in a conservative Muslim village. Chirag Foundation supports multiple projects at the school, including capability build of teachers, infrastructure upgrades, computer lab, community library, solar electrification, tuitions to school students and school alumni who are now in other senior schools etc.