Bhagwad Gita Champion Maryam Siddiqui Donates all the Prize Money for Girl Child Education

After winning prizes for her prowess and knowledge of Gita at the competition conducted by ISKCON and several other places, Maryam has been returning back her cash rewards to facilitate the education of poor girls. Kudos to our very own Malala!

Four months ago, people were taken by surprise when Maryam Siddiqui, a Muslim girl, topped the Bhagwad Gita competition conducted by the International Society for Krishna Consciousness – ISKCON. Bhagwad Gita is a part of the epic Mahabharata and is a compilation of the philosophical teachings of Lord Krishna.

She was showered with felicitations, awards and honors from around the country, starting from President Pranab Mukherjee, Congress president Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul Gandhi, several chief ministers, and many other organizations.

She won the first prize amongst 4,000 students from 195 schools in Maharashtra who took part in the competition. But that’s not the end of the proud deeds of this girl.

Courtesy: Facebook

Since then, she has been donating all her cash prizes for the betterment of girl education in the country. Every cheque that she has received, which include cash rewards ranging  from Rupees 11 thousand to 11 lakh, have been returned back to the respective administration with the request that it be used in a scheme or something to provide better education for girls.

It happened when the Gujarat Chief Minister Anandiben Patel and the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav felicitated her. Both the state heads were stumped when they received the respective cheques that they rewarded her, along with additional cheques from Maryam’s other winnings, with a request to utilize the money for the education of poor girls or to use all the money for the noble cause through various schemes in their states.

Maryam is from a middle class family, who lives at Mira road in Thane, Mumbai. Her father, Asif Siddiqui, is a journalist and editor of a Hindi publication – Vartman Media. He told Midday, “Though we are not financially well off, my daughter has made it her mission to work for the education of girls.”

Maryam is next going to meet the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh and we ask him to be prepared for this girl’s generosity because she would be armed with a cheque to be handed over to the chief minister for the same cause.

Maryam is a Class 6 student of Cosmopolitan High School in Mira Road and she has also been visiting few other places and distributing sweets and money to poor girls by herself. Hats off  to the amazing girl who shows us the true meaning of generosity.

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