Career
Kirat is married to a pilot named Samar Cheema. She was the creator and director of Punarjyot, an non-governmental organization that works for the preservation and promotion of the heritage of Punjab, and also founded Saanjh: Amritsar-Lahore festival to promote cultural interaction and better understanding between the cities of Amritsar & Lahore
Sandhu was posthumously awarded the Kalpana Chawla award for promotion of art, culture and education. She produced several plays in an effort to revive the composite culture of Punjab, which had suffered a setback after the partition of India.
She had also encouraged Pakistan-based artists and was instrumental in organising several joint cultural shows under the aegis of Saanjh and Punarjyot.
Her research was instrumental in bringing a fair representation to Moran Sarkar, the dancing girl who Maharaja Ranjit Singh married in 1802. Manveen Sandhu was also the principal of Spring Dale Senior School, Amritsar, and was noted for her exemplary integration of Multiple Intelligences into the curriculum.
Her efforts to further education were recognised by Ministry of Human Resource Development – Government of India, which conferred the National Award 2008 on her under its scheme of National Award to Teachers.