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Beginning of a new Journey
Asha, a 7th standard drop out, born to a family of pani puri walla ( Indian Fast Food) never thought she would ever have the courage and confidence to cross the four walls of her house. She didn’t pursue her education further just because she was girl child. This exclusion from the basic rights as a human being left a long lasting impression on her mind. And then her wedding at a tender age of 19 years left her clueless about what to do in life? Fortunately her husband turned out to be a supportive pillar for her. She is proud mother of two boys now. Motherhood has given her so many new things to learn. She is now more responsible and aspires to do a job for the better future of her kids. Mumbai Smiles through its skill based training program gave her the opportunity to begin a new journey in life. Here are the excerpts from the interview we had with her post training
How has SEED affected your life? Has it changed it for the better/worse? How has it changed? What have been the consequences of participating in this workshop? How has it helped?
SEED helped me acquire skills which have given me dignified livelihood. Definitely it has changed my life in all good ways possible. The dreams which I had seen as an adolescent, this training program gave wings to it. Today I am running a parlor at my home after completing the course successfully.
What are your plans for future? How will you go about it?
I plan to open a parlor of my own in future. My husband is planning to shift to some other location in Nala Sopara in Mumbai. He has promised me to help in setting up a parlor at that new location.
What is that one message you would like to convey to the society?
I see a lot of change happening in the society. Women and girls are coming out of their homes shedding away the societal and family barriers. My message to all the women across the world is to, “Educate girl child because she is the foundation of every family. I believe this change will not happen unless the men in society participate actively advocating for the rights of women & girls.”
We are sharing with you a link of our latest training program running in our office premises under SEED project: https://www.mumbaismiles.org/english/BlogDetails.aspx?id=751
