Meera Shenoy is a renowned social entrepreneur and the founder‑CEO of Youth4Jobs, India’s first large‑scale mission to skill and place rural and disabled youth in sustainable livelihoods. She is also a Promisor, having committed through the LivingMyPromise initiative to donate at least 50% of her wealth to philanthropic causes.
We all have a power within. It is carried like fragrance in the flower, unconsciously. When we forget ourselves, the inner power unfolds.
We were delighted when a company requested us to train girls for different roles. The company had never hired girls or girls with disabilities before. This was our first all-girls batch. So, they arrived from remote villages. Some, over 60% disabled, came in on all fours. They were too poor to afford calipers, they said, and had learned to walk using their hands. Dull, listless faces, crushed by a society, where if you are a girl, rural, poor and disabled, it meant four blows on your shoulders. Then, slowly they began looking up, smiling sometimes. They were taught English through songs, and learnt how to handle computers. I still remember their expressions when they watched a downloaded Youtube dance performance, by an all PwD (persons with disabilities) cast. They could not take their eyes off the screen…I could sense a new sprightliness in their awkward gait.
Saraswati, 22 years old, intrigued me. Bespectacled but bright eyed. The most disabled of the lot, she would only cry each time we asked her to talk about her life. Years of anguish and suffering cannot be wiped away in one or two months. I would see her wandering in the garden, gently fondling the blossoming pink flowers. Practising on the computer to gain speed. Her father, a marginal farmer, earning less than a dollar a day, wept when she was born. He vowed however, he would educate this misshapen girl child. She says he carried her on his shoulder to the bus stop. Sometimes she missed two buses and waited for hours in the rain. She became a graduate. But in India, education does not guarantee a job ticket. She was frustrated, felt defeated by a fate which still did not let her be independent.
Today, she got the best job in a batch of 17 girls through SwarajAbility, our livelihood platform for youth with disability. One of our largest private banks hired her, after three rounds of interviews. She draws a princely sum of Rs. 2,50,000 per annum. “No one in my village can believe this. I want to give my family a better life, with a good education for my younger brother,” she says, as she walks, confidently now, with a pair of brand-new calipers. Literally, on her own two feet.
Each social entrepreneur has chosen a path – mine is to help youth with disabilities find their inner power and transform their own lives through Youth4Jobs. And we see this with 17 young men and women with disabilities Every Single Day .
As a LivingMyPromise member, I am inspired by the kinds and levels of Giving by every Promisor. It stretches my own and ignites a hope that every ripple created by each Promisor will melt existing divides into the ocean of humanity.