The Vedicology Foundation

The Vedicology Foundation is a Section 8 non-profit organisation incorporated in India, dedicated to empowering orphaned youth and single-parent adolescents through structured scholarship programmes, aftercare support, and vocational enablement. Founded by Praveen and Vandana Praveen, the Foundation operates active programmes across six scholarship categories and nine areas of youth welfare, with operational relationships with Child Care Institutions across Tamil Nadu. It is funded in part by revenues from the Vedicology India Academy.

For families who encounter Vedicology Advisors through its advisory, coaching, or Vedic consultation work, the Foundation represents something specific: the principal advisor has not simply studied philanthropy or advised others on it. He has built and governed a functioning institution from the ground up — from incorporation to scholarship design, from beneficiary selection to regulatory reporting, from team building to sustained operations across years.

This page describes what the Foundation is, what it does, who it serves, and how it operates. For visitors who want to learn more about the Foundation’s work directly, or who wish to support it, a link to the Foundation’s own website appears at the close of this page.

What the Foundation Does

The Vedicology Foundation works with a population that occupies a specific and underserved space in India’s social landscape: young people who have grown up in institutional care — in Child Care Institutions (CCIs) across Tamil Nadu — and who face an abrupt transition to independent life, typically at the age of eighteen. At that point, the institutional support that sustained them through childhood ends. What remains is a set of challenges that most people never have to navigate simultaneously: the absence of a family support structure, the absence of financial resources, limited access to higher education and vocational training, uncertain housing, incomplete legal documentation, and the psychological burden of building a life from a starting point that their peers take for granted.

The Foundation addresses these challenges through two parallel mechanisms. The first is a structured scholarship programme covering six categories of educational and competitive examination support. The second is a broader welfare framework addressing nine areas of need that extend beyond education into the practical realities of post-institutional life.

The work is operational, not aspirational. The Foundation has a formal team, a governance structure, and active relationships with CCIs. Scholarship criteria have been designed, beneficiaries have been selected, and programmes have been sustained across academic cycles. The specifics follow.

Scholarship Programmes

The Foundation operates six scholarship programmes, each designed to address a specific educational pathway that orphaned youth and single-parent adolescents need access to but are structurally excluded from by circumstance:

Higher Education Scholarships. Support for undergraduate and postgraduate study at recognised institutions. These scholarships cover tuition, materials, and associated costs for students who have demonstrated academic capability but lack the family financial structure to pursue further education.

Vocational Education Scholarships. Support for skill-based and vocational training programmes that lead to employable qualifications. Not every young person leaving institutional care is suited to or interested in traditional higher education. Vocational pathways — in trades, technology, healthcare support, and other practical fields — provide a structured route to economic self-sufficiency.

NEET Coaching Scholarships. Support for competitive examination preparation for the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), the gateway to medical education in India. The cost of quality NEET coaching is prohibitive for most families, and entirely out of reach for young people without family support. These scholarships fund access to coaching programmes.

JEE Coaching Scholarships. Support for the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) preparation, which determines admission to India’s premier engineering institutions. The same access barrier that applies to NEET coaching applies here. The scholarship addresses it directly.

UPSC Coaching Scholarships. Support for Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) civil services examination preparation. A career in the Indian Administrative Service or allied services represents one of the most consequential pathways available to a young person in India. The Foundation funds access to the preparation that makes it possible.

CAT Coaching Scholarships. Support for the Common Admission Test (CAT) preparation for admission to India’s leading management institutions. Management education opens career pathways in the private sector that are otherwise inaccessible without established networks and financial resources.

Each scholarship programme is structured with defined eligibility criteria, a selection process, and a support framework that extends beyond financial assistance to include mentoring and progress monitoring. The programmes are not one-time grants. They are designed to sustain the student through the duration of their educational commitment.

Beyond Scholarships — Nine Areas of Youth Welfare

Education alone does not resolve the challenges facing orphaned youth in India. A scholarship that places a young person in a university programme but does not address where they will live, how they will manage their mental health, or whether they have the legal documentation needed to open a bank account is an incomplete intervention. The Foundation’s work therefore extends across nine areas of youth welfare, each addressing a specific dimension of the post-institutional transition:

Housing Insecurity. Young people leaving CCIs at eighteen often have no assured housing. The transition from institutional accommodation to independent living is one of the most immediate and destabilising challenges they face. The Foundation works to identify and support housing solutions during the transition period.

Aftercare Support. The period immediately following departure from a CCI is critical. Aftercare involves ongoing guidance, check-ins, and practical assistance as the young person navigates the first stages of independent life — a function that families provide naturally but that orphaned youth must access through structured programmes.

Mental Health. The psychological dimensions of growing up without parental support, navigating institutional care, and then facing an abrupt transition to independence are significant. The Foundation recognises mental health as a core component of its support framework, not a secondary concern.

Social Acceptance. Orphaned youth in India face social stigma that affects their personal relationships, their professional opportunities, and their own self-perception. The Foundation’s work in this area involves community engagement and awareness, alongside direct support to the young people it serves.

Gender Disparities. Young women leaving institutional care face compounded challenges: the vulnerabilities that orphaned youth experience are amplified by gender-based barriers to education, employment, safety, and social participation. The Foundation attends to these disparities within its programme design.

Legal Documentation. Access to basic legal documents — identity proof, educational certificates, birth records, caste certificates, and bank accounts — is something most people take for granted. For young people who have spent their formative years in institutional care, securing these documents can be a significant barrier to accessing education, employment, and government services. The Foundation provides assistance with documentation processes.

Employment Challenges. Moving from institutional care to economic self-sufficiency requires not just skills and qualifications but also the networks, confidence, and practical knowledge that enable a young person to find, secure, and sustain employment. The Foundation works on both skill enablement and employment readiness.

Awareness and Advocacy. The challenges facing orphaned youth in India are not widely understood outside the social sector. The Foundation engages in awareness work to broaden understanding of these challenges among the communities and institutions that can make a difference.

Educational Empowerment. Beyond the specific scholarship programmes, the Foundation’s broader educational empowerment work involves identifying and addressing the systemic barriers that prevent orphaned youth from accessing and completing educational pathways — from primary school completion through to higher education and competitive examination success.

Why the Foundation Exists

The Vedicology Foundation emerged from a conviction that is also central to the advisory practice: wealth held without a sense of stewardship is wealth that has not been fully understood.

Praveen and Vandana Praveen did not establish the Foundation as an extension of the advisory business or as a branding exercise. It was established because the population it serves — orphaned youth at the threshold of independent adulthood — faces a specific, identifiable set of challenges that structured intervention can address. The Foundation exists because the work needed to be done, and because the founders had the resources, the conviction, and the willingness to build the institution required to do it.

For the families who engage with Vedicology Advisors on questions of philanthropic strategy, governance, or legacy, the Foundation’s existence means something practical: the philanthropic advisory offered by the practice comes from someone who has personally navigated every stage of building a non-profit institution — from articulating the mission, to incorporating the entity, to designing programmes, selecting beneficiaries, building a team, managing operations, and reporting to regulators. The advice is grounded in practice, not theory.

How the Foundation Is Funded

The Vedicology Foundation is funded in part by revenues from the Vedicology India Academy — the educational institution through which Praveen Saanker and his team teach courses in Vedic Astrology, Numerology, Vastu Shastra, and aspects of Sanatana Dharma to students across India and internationally.

This funding model is itself noteworthy. The Academy’s educational work directly supports the Foundation’s welfare programmes, creating a self-sustaining relationship between the teaching of India’s classical knowledge systems and the practical support of young people who need it. Revenue generated from teaching is channelled into scholarships, aftercare, and vocational enablement for orphaned youth.

This model reflects the integration that characterises the broader Vedicology ecosystem. The advisory practice, the Academy, and the Foundation are distinct entities with distinct purposes, but they share a common conviction: that knowledge, wealth, and capability carry an obligation of stewardship.

Governance and Team

The Foundation operates with a formal governance structure appropriate to a Section 8 company under Indian law. Praveen Saanker serves as Founder and Director. Vandana Praveen serves as Director of Finance and Accounting, overseeing the financial governance and reporting that institutional credibility requires.

The Foundation’s team includes coordinators responsible for educational empowerment and empowerment initiatives, who manage the operational relationships with Child Care Institutions, oversee scholarship programme delivery, and maintain ongoing contact with beneficiaries. The team is not nominal. It is functional — managing the day-to-day work of running scholarship programmes, conducting beneficiary outreach, and sustaining the operational relationships that make the Foundation’s work possible.

For families considering building their own philanthropic structures, the Foundation’s governance model provides a working example of how a small, focused institution can be structured for accountability and sustainability. The governance conversations that Vedicology Advisors facilitates with its clients are informed by this direct experience.

The Vedicology Foundation is not an appendix to the advisory practice. It is a functioning institution that reflects the values the practice is built on. For UHNW families working with Vedicology Advisors on questions of philanthropy, governance, or legacy, the Foundation is part of what makes the conversation different: the advisor has done the work, not just studied it.