By Geetanjali Deshmukh | Manager
Dear Friends,
This time we bring to you a success story of one of our many women beneficiaries enrolled with our skill development courses. Learning new skills brings wonderful economic opportunities for these women. With financial independece, comes the courage to fight back oppression. This is one such story...
Manisha is a spirited young woman from Pune, India who has recently completed our Tailoring course. She sews beautiful kurtas, tops, pants and blouses and has recently added new patterns like palazzos, balloon frocks and scarf top to her ever increasing portfolio.
If you saw her today, working on her sewing machine with focus and determination, you will never believe her troubled past. 5 years ago, Manisha along with her young daughter walked out of her abusive alcoholic husband’s home. With no income, she and her daughter became a burden on Manisha’s ageing parents.
Deciding to become independent, Manisha joined our Tailoring batch. Her daughter too was enrolled with our Sponsorship programme through which she is getting monetary support (school fee reimbursement) and non-monetary support (school bags, stationery, life skill and career counselling sessions) to complete her education.
Initially Manisha suffered from lack of self-confidence but she kept working hard fine-tuning her craft. As her skills improved, she started getting a lot of appreciation from her instructor and classmates. Weekly life skill sessions on topics like health, inter-personal relationships and financial literacy gave a big boost to her confidence and motivated her to stand on her feet.
Manisha is currently self-employed, she gets tailoring orders from women from her community and every month she is earrning better than before. Along with skill training and Life Skill sessions, she says that Counselling by IDEA’s social workers also gave her a lot of strength and courage.
She recently fought and won custody of her daughter after divorce and wants to become fully financially independent so that she can set a positive example for her daughter Mansi. Manisha says that she does not want her daughter to suffer the same fate and wants to provide a happy enviornment for her. This is just the beginning of a life full of new hopes and dreams for Manisha and her daughter.
Our skill development programme is helping thousands of women like Manisha and others who had to drop out of school and were soon caught in the drudgery of life. Skilling gives them a second chance to explore their capacities and capabilities. Expert mentors guide and motivate them to become self-employed and take charge of their life.
Friends, we request you to help women like Manisha find hope and purpose in life again. Please Donate to this project.
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