The World Storytelling Day, on March 20 every year, celebrates sharing of stories as an oral tradition, spanning cultures and continents. To celebrate the power of stories, here’s a story of a remarkable young person, Varshitha. This story spans nearly 8 years of her life, starting when she was 15.
Varshitha saw her father sitting idle all day while her mother juggled work, as a housekeeping staff at a private company in Bangalore during the day and as a house help in a nearby apartment complex, after office hours. Her younger brother went to school, too young to comprehend the scarcity at home. Varshitha wanted to continue studying after completing her Pre-university college, but hesitated to share this with her mother, concerned about the pre-existing burden on her, being the sole breadwinner and caregiver of the family. Her mother always ensured availability of daily essentials at home and encouraged her children to study to break out of the cycle of poverty. Varshitha admired the strength she saw in her mother and wanted to be like her.
Empathetic towards the financial struggle in her family and to support her mother, she joined as a tele-caller at a call centre. One day, her friends excitedly shared about the free courses they were enrolled for at Dream a Dream’s Thriving Centre in Bommanahalli (Bangalore, India). Curious, Varshitha enrolled into the Basic Computer course, where she found the facilitators to be very different from her teachers in school and college. They made her feel that her views mattered. They appreciated her strength to explore and learn new skills, something she did not realise she possessed. After completing the Computer course, she could not stop herself from enrolling in the Dance course. She had always wanted to learn dance, but could not afford the cost of classes.
To contribute to her family income, she began dancing with orchestra bands at public events. Due to fear of ridicule and reprimand, she did this without her family’s knowledge. One day, she was found dancing at an event by a relative, who chided her for bringing a bad name to the family and stopped her from performing anymore, cutting the source of the little income she added to her family. Not one to sit idle, Varshitha used her earnings to enrol into a Bachelor of Arts distance learning course. She started dreaming of becoming an army personnel and joined the NCC to pursue this. But life had other things in store for her.
Her family met with a terrible road accident in January 2020 and Varshitha ended up with a fracture, spine and hand injury. Bedridden and on life support, her pursuit of dreams came to a halt. After a year of battling for survival, she started picking the pieces of her life together. The lessons taught by the facilitators encouraged her to keep fighting for her dreams. She had learnt from them to follow her passion and invest herself into it with hard work and determination without getting discouraged with failures or being preoccupied with the urgency of results. She was taught to be independent, have self-belief, make mistakes and try again, until she succeeds. Even with a terrible hand pain that would stay all her life, her grit and never-say-die attitude pushed her up from the bed.
Professional make-up artists were in demand in the market then and she started researching ways to enrol into such a course. After indepth research, careful to not make any hasty decision, she spoke to her mother to enrol in a course at a private make-up academy. This required her to procure an education loan. Wary of the financial burden it will add, Varshitha was delighted when her mother encouraged her to take it up showing complete confidence in her abilities. Such unconditional positive regard from a parent was critical for Varshitha to thrive. She joined a make-up course and simultaneously started posting photos of her work on social media to build her brand. Attracting a few free collaborations, she slowly expanded and started charging for her work. With funding support from Dream a Dream, she built her professional makeup kit.
Today, she works as a receptionist at a private IT firm during the day and as a food delivery person during the late evening hours. She also takes make-up orders from clients, on demand. Her struggles have made her extremely hard working and driven. She understands the value of each rupee despite earning well now and success has not made her complacent.
Battling pain in her injured hand, Varshitha is unstoppable. Massaging her hand, she says, “Whether I do something or not, my hand will not stop aching, I would rather do something and make the pain worthwhile.”
She dreams of opening a training academy to teach the skills of professional make-up to interested young people, at a reasonable cost, for people like her, who have a passion, but lack the resources to achieve their dreams. She also wants to give a cycle to her brother soon and buy her own house someday. With a determined will to change her life, Varshitha is a true example of how young people are building their future empowered with life skills that helped her navigate her life with optimism despite many obstacles and craft her own idea of success. Thriving for Varshitha is being Resilient in the face of challenges life throws at her, being Responsible for the choices she made and feeling Happy by owning her story and accepting herself.