History / Mission

In 1998, a small group of friends got together to establish a program that would provide a new opportunity for their peers to learn about and work for the South Asian community while augmenting their education through valuable experiences. To do this, they began researching the procedures through which a Fellowship could be established to support students in a way that would help promote South Asian awareness and support the South Asian community while allowing the recipients the independence and freedom to explore original avenues to accomplish these goals. The Fellowship was named after Mahatma Gandhi because Gandhi, perhaps the most famous South Asian in history, himself most elegantly and thoroughly pronounced these beliefs of social awareness and acceptance as well as personal dedication and hard work to accomplish this goal. Thus, the Mahatma Gandhi Fellowship was established under the College of Arts and Sciences at UNC-Chapel Hill. Recognizing this effort to be one that itself seeks a more open and accepting society.
Today, the main goals of the Mahatma Gandhi Fellowship are as follows:

• To increase awareness of South Asian issues
  
• To promote the value of education through experience
  
• To provide students a unique opportunity to serve the South Asian community

These goals, derived from the original philosophy behind the Fellowship, are carried on today by the current MGF Co-Chairs and the Fellows who are selected each year. The Mahatma Gandhi Fellowship is administered today through Sangam, a South Asian awareness organization at UNC-Chapel Hill, which selects the MGF Co-Chairs and coordinates all fundraising efforts. Through the efforts of Sangam and its members, progress continues to be made as students work to raise the $125,000 endowment fund that will guarantee this Fellowship for years to come by allowing new Fellows to be funded simply off the interest generated.

The Mahatma Gandhi Fellowship, which has sponsored 16 Fellows to date, continues to uphold the beliefs under which it was established, namely the value of social awareness and of education through personal experience and service. Each Fellow selected is a highly motivated, dedicated, and open-minded individual who not only possesses the creativity and imagination to create amazing projects, but also the thoroughness and dedication to follow them through. Through the Mahatma Gandhi Fellowship, not only are students gaining invaluable educational experience, but issues important to the South Asian community are being raised and addressed in order, making the general community more socially conscious not only of the diversity on a regional level, but also of the great and amazing diversity within South Asia itself.