Asha V, 21 years old, a student at Pratishtha, a skill training centre of Reaching Hand. Her father, Venkatesh, worked as a construction laborer, and her mother, Tulasi, was a housewife. She has a younger brother. They found it challenging to provide for the family with one person’s salary.
After Asha completed her 10th grade, her father made the decision to get her married. Ganesh was her husband. She was interested in studying further, so she convinced her husband. She persuaded her husband to support her, and he willingly obliged to help her. With her husband’s help, she completed her II PUC. Sadly, she was forced to withdraw from her graduation as her husband and his family stopped her from continuing her studies, since she needed to take care of her son.
She lost her husband in a serious accident not long after that. At a young age, she became a widow. She and her son had no one to care for them. She was compelled to leave her husband’s house with her infant son and move in with her mother.
It was a difficult time for her because she didn’t have enough money to take care of her son. Because it was lockdown time, she began looking for a job and also asked her friends for recommendations. A course at Reaching Hand was proposed by one of her friends, Pavitra. She enrolled in the course full of optimism.
She was oblivious to what was going on during the first week since she didn’t understand the concepts. Yet as the days passed, she became more aware of her path. She gained the ability to interact with her fellow students and take an active part in class.
She mentions, “knowing an employer’s expectations, confidence building, interpersonal skills at work, and communication abilities” as her main takeaways from the training. She expresses her gratitude for receiving this instruction at no cost. She says now she has the confidence in her ability to step out into the world and provide for her son and her family.
Through our placement program, she got recruited in Smile Electronics and finally we could bring a smile to her life through our skill training and placement project for Youth and women called “Pratishtha”.