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We have bee having the train the tainer program for the career success workshops here in Kolkata. Gushing winds and rains thru the day. When i went out.. trees broken and window panes falling left a scare....

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Live Life like this….

While travelling back from work at Rajur.. was coming back the Rajur, Gothi and Igatpuri Road….in a remote village , pardeswadi.. on the road we were searching a place for a evening chai..suddenly passed a restaurant called “Hotel Ashwini”, turned the car and stopped at the restaurant. Though it was closed. So honked..there came a lady..motherly and highly enthusiastic..I asked “do you have something to eat ??” .. Yes came the answer.

Then a great experience started.. an old couple in mid 70s.. Mr. & Mrs. Pardeshi, we called them Aunty and uncle.. the next one hour was full of laughter, happiness and smiles. Aunty cracking jokes targeting uncle.. uncle calling aunty the Big Boss, and aunty calling uncle the waiter.. but both were so happy praising eachother..

The poha cooked by aunty was awesome.. and then with them sharing their experience the entire evening was just too good…

Thank you uncle and aunty.. to make our life happy and inspiring us …

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Raising the bar of possibilities…That’s transformation..

At Rajur, where we at Dheya started working on the tribal youth, the experience has been amazing. We said we are NOT going to talk about learning english, (generally all those who ever reached out to them have said, you need to learn english to be successful). I said said NO english!!.. my view was if I have to build these youngsters i cannot ask them to re-do their language…

We siad we will work on their self confidence and self esteem , their grooming and their body language and it paid of.. here is the photo story of a transformed youth…

Rajur… in the lap of sahyadris , a beautiful village. the population .. mostly tribal.

The occupation.. agriculture.

The youth we targeted are those who completed their education and have acquired education between SSC to a degree.

The village and its Bazar… the bazaar days are every Monday… and thats the time to catch up with the youth. nearly every one from the nearby village visits the weekly bazaar. its a wonderful environment.

Our initial job was to communicate the difference between employability and employment… (for the benefit of yours.. employment is about getting a job, employability is about an ability to get a right job and remain employed.)

The village to village campaigns worked… we tied up with Eklavya education society (run by the Pichad Family). the local support made a huge impact in gaining credibility. Unfortunately the population we targeted was the tribal youth..to whom the government has been dolling huge grants for development. The attitude is … if its for development its FREE. To my surprise..at a place like Rajur, which is the center of the Golden triangle of maharashtra with Mumbai, Pune and Nasik being its vertices.. But it was shocking to see what happens in the name of development… where does the development happen and where does the money send for development gets absorbed.

We said.. we will not create an NGO.. we will create a commercial and professional that runs like a NGO.. we went with a different philosophy. We said we get the best of the trainers from outside the village. certify the trainers on our program and start. working with the youth. We said .. NO SLIDESHOWS, no English, no heaps of papers and no rejections. We said yes to assessments to slot students into batches, Yes to experiential behavioural training sessions, Yes to collaborating with we worked with employers to get the trained students employed..

Starting with assessments we worked with the students on an experiential level. We worked with the them on a on on one basis.. we played training games,we made them dream, we set goals and made them believe in their capabilities.

The games, the exercises were absolutely encouraging.. when speaking to Dr. Arun Mudbhidri, Director of Symbiosis Institute of Business Management, (he being a guiding post) , i said these people have a beautiful open mind. Its like an empty vessel getting filled… you fill good thing they will absorb… you fill bad things they will absorb.. we filled life in them… and then we got the first glimpse of transformation…

An under confident and shy students.. confidently started speaking .. their communication skills improved… their style of dressing improved.. hygiene and grooming changed.. the belief that “I CAN” was built…

At the interviews.. the proof of concepts

The Results… last week we invited Dr. Arun Mudbhidri, to felicitate the successful students, he happily accepted the invitation… the entire batch got placed in 25days….

What made us proud…

“my son had seen nothing, he knew the sounds of wild animals, he knew mud, he knew rocks, that was his life…inspite of graduation.today he can speak in front of hundreds and has made us proud by taking up a job… you have changed our lives…you have built hope in our family… “ … mother of Kundlik..Participant batch II

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