How these youngsters are re-writing their stories through skill development

Success stories of Mamta Pagare and Swapnil Pawar are heart-warming as well as inspiring to many youth in the country. Grit and persistence are what led these two youth to fight their circumstances and rewrite their stories towards success. Both Mamta and Swapnil pursued courses from Tata STRIVE which helped them excel in their respective careers beyond their difficulties which eventually led them to become financially independent.

Check out their stories here –

Mamta Pagare: Mamta is a 26-year-old from North Bengal. She belongs to a family of nine, who is married and has a child. With a strong aim to become financially independent, she joined the Beauty Advisor course at Tata STRIVE at TSSDC, Pune. With her sincerity and efforts, she got employed by L’Oréal Paris as a Beauty Advisor in one of their salons.

She completed her graduate degree in Arts and started working in a local Salon in Bangalore for about two years. Her husband developed a sudden severe health ailment which resulted in financial and emotional melt down in the family. Mamta was determined to overcome this trial by becoming financially independent. She came to know about Tata STRIVE from one of her relatives. She enrolled herself for Beauty Advisor course. Leaving her eight months old child at home she pursued the course to gain financial Stability for herself and her family.

Due to language issues, in the beginning Mamta came across as silent and shy person. However, gradually she learnt to open up and express herself. She gave her full attention in learning practical and customer interaction. During YDM sessions she paid special attention in learning life skills too. She completed her course with 87.8% attendance and B Grade.

In L’Oréal product training she gave her 100 percent in theory and practical exam and got selected. She has also completed her OJT (on-the-job training) with admiration from her Team leads.

As per her domain facilitator, “She was curious to learn new things; she was inquisitive and continuously strived to improve on her shortcomings.”

According to Mamta, she learnt about products, customer handling, relationship management and conflict management, which comes handy at work place.

She loves attending customer the most in her job. She wishes to have flexibility in work timings and a little scope for sitting during work hours. She misses mindfulness, time for grooming and frequent appreciation that she used to get from her facilitators most in her Tata STRIVE days.

Swapnil Pawar: Swapnil is a 22-year-old, who hails from Maharashtra. An unfortunate event in his life and financial instability is what led him to pursue Solar PV Installer (Suryamitra) at Tata STRIVE, at TSSDC Pune. With his strong domain knowledge and persistence, he secured a job at Avishakati Solar as a Trainee Solar PV Design Engineering.

Swapnil hails from a small village Walekhindi in Sangali district, Maharashtra. His father owns a small business of fabrication. But financial instability prevailed in the family due to unstable income. As a result, Swapnil had to take gaps in education. He had keen interest in electrical and thus enrolled himself to diploma in Electrical. On one unfortunate day while working at his father’s workshop an accident took place which took away 4 fingers of Swapnil’s left hand. It changed a great deal in Swapnil’s life. He aspired for Government job, which he couldn’t appear for anymore. None of the private organizations were ready to take him on a job with amputated fingers. He worked for a year with a small-scale firm Renu Electrical Pvt Ltd. Pune. He had served almost one year to company but it was contract job and he was getting no increment. Therefore, he decided to go for further studies. He enrolled himself to ISBM College in Pune for Electronic and telecommunication course.

He learnt about Tata STRIVE in the campus job fair in the college. He chose to take admission on Solar PV Installer course. Swapnil was a very sincere learner and focused toward his learning. He had 87.30% attendance. His overall grade was ‘B’. He knew his weakness very well so that he was very focused on Solar PV Design. Coaching helped him in setting goals for improving English communication. He made charge controller from waste mobile charger and participated in best out of waste competition. He went through three rounds of interview, aptitude test, face to face interview, practical and was selected as Trainee Design Engineer with Avishakti Solar in Mumbai. The employer was very impressed by his perseverance.

Swapnil says topics like Solar PV Design, site survey, basic of Solar PV design and additional general information about solar PV online learning source always helps him to learn and get more knowledge. New challenges and tasks excite him in his job. He misses the learning through activity, coaching session, and peer learning.