Onam and My Prayaana !

Every Onam, Interesting things happen in my life !  I recollect past four years of my entrepreneurship journey and what happened during Onam. 

Year 2014 Onam  was when I failed in my partnership business with a friend and was asked to move out of office. That year was the toughest of my business  venture where quitting was the better option. But I chose not to quit. Continued 4Tune from my home office, Veena was there to support as the only team member! All the rest left !. 

Year 2015 Onam was when I was depressed at home after I  failed in trying to launch a finishing school for engineers (Peaks Academy) and was once again asked to move out of an office of a partner. Then as a one last attempt tried to organise a Trainers Conference, which restarted my business. Later that year, I then conceptualised T4Trainer.com and started working towards building the startup and forming the team. Year 2016, launched it and got the support of NASSCOM 10K. Things started to move faster and better! 

Year 2016  Onam , we launched Trainopedia magazine,  an exclusive learning & development magazine. I had a decent team size of 8 people at that time. And we worked greatly as a team. 

Through out this journey, I realised the challenges of being a woman in a tech startup. I tried to help a handful of girls in building their career (some of them are now well - placed in other companies) . I realised that most of the time, women only need a minor push to help them build great things.I also realised that women need a safe place to work or startup and an ecosystem that helps them scale their business without huge investments. 

 Around 18 months back , Me and Keziah Thomas worked on a CSR project at a rural college and helped a batch of girl students get placed in various companies in our network. Then came the dream of setting up a finishing school for girls, which was dormant for sometime due to lack of funds and facilities. 

Meanwhile. we again were out of office in April 2017, since incubation period  at Nasscom expired. With no place to go and when all the team members left , only two members stayed strong and continued with the company despite their several tempting offers and predicaments. 

And Year 2017 ONAM, I announced the launch of Prayaana, one of a kind, employability, entrepreneurship and innovation lab for Girls and women, with the support of UST Global , Infinity Labs.  

Year 2018 ONAM , I am proud to say that Prayaana has scaled decent heights, marked a few milestones touched the lives of over 10000 girls within the past one year of launch.  This Onam I wanted to launch an innovative online platform but it got delayed due to the floods and the related troubles for the team. But yes, instead we launched a new initiative Koottarivu , which is a social support project where senior students and women adopt schools which are flood stricken and volunteer as a teacher. 

Every Onam, I do get significant things happening in my life - sometimes challenges sometimes happiness . Whatever happens , I think it was all part of growth. Part of being alive! 

I have allowed destiny to carry me along and I am keen to await what it will bring me next Onam ! 

Grateful to all who have supported me in this journey (and also who left the journey ! ;)  ) 

Koottarivu stands for Shared Knowledge and Friendly learning. I envisage a future educational revolution with this initiative. Let's see what destiny takes me to.

www.koottarivu.prayaana.org

                                     
#BeingEntrepreneur #GirlsStartup #Employability #Entrepreneurship #OnamLaunch #Koottarivu

Cheers 
#CeeVee 

The Love Teacher

I remember a recent conversation with my son.   As soon as he came home from school, he took his tablet and started searching for something. In a few minutes, I saw him making a sigh along with a "yes, so I was right". Perplexed, I asked what was the matter. He said, "Aah, my dumb teacher! " . I was shocked and reprimanded him for saying such words against his teacher.  He apologized and said, "Amma, but she is wrong" . I then asked the details and found that the teacher had given a wrong answer for one of his query in physics. Well, my son is a little ahead of his classmates in terms of his knowledge in electronics and physics. Probably that's why he got upset on the fact that  he got wrong information from his teacher. Am sure, he will then start to distrust his teacher the next time onwards. And in some cases, students like him will end up as casual listeners because they know that their teacher is not knowledgeable. 

Another instance was when my daughter mentioned casually that she was doing an assignment for the sake of showing it to her teacher who will otherwise crib.  

I know, most of you will have many such instances of student's perspectives of a teacher. As I grew up , I also did have several such teachers whom I hated . And ironically we start to hate a subject when we don't like the teacher  who teaches the subject. I still remember , one reason why I failed in Maths during my pre-degree(plus two) was because  I didn't like the teacher who taught it. I found all her classes boring to the core that I stopped learning and finally flunked in the exam. Later I took help of my own classmates who taught me the principles and then passed the exam.  

Today being Teacher's day, I pondered over  who is a  great teacher? Or what is the future of teaching?  Ten years back this question would yield a different answer and today it leads to different one. 

Oh, well at  a philosophical level, every human being or circumstances or experience is a teacher . And a greater teacher is someone who identifies and facilitates the teacher in every student he/she encounters. To put it simpler , a great teacher instills the passion in a student and helps him/her become a greater teacher than before. 

But coming to the practical aspects, a  person who has taken up teaching as a career is expected to provide certain levels of experiences to the student .  And that experience includes Love .  Love that must be expressed by understanding the needs of the student and trying genuinely to help. 

The role of a teacher thus is not helping the student learn the subject but to help him/ her fall in love with the subject. For which , the student should fall in love with the teacher ! Yes, every student should love his /her teacher first in order to love the subject.  I  may sound a bit off-track , but think deeper. you will get to know what I am trying to say. Ultimately we remember only the teacher who loved us and who cared for us specially than others. 


With Google being the teacher of the new generation, I think , there is only one subject every human  teacher needs to teach - Humanity.  Whichever is the subject a teacher teaches, include the ingredients of love and humanity , I  am sure , the student will be transformed. 

Yes, become "The Love Teacher" than  the mere "The Maths Teacher" or "Science Teacher" 

Cheers
CeeVee

Pic : Our Prayaana Fellows who took the role of teachers at an orphanage & a Govt school recently