FROM FARM LABOURER TO IT FIRM’S CEO
We surrender to those limits where there is not really any opportunity to push forward. Still, consistent determination can't prevent an individual from getting accomplished in life.
This was demonstrated by Mrs Jyothi Reddy, who went on an unequal excursion from being a field worker to the Chief of Key Programming Arrangements in the US. She personifies the ultimate vision to change the lives of numerous ladies in provincial India.
Let´s travel in time, when she was attempting to make something significant.
Jyothi was the second of five siblings from a poor family. Having lost her mother early in life, she was placed in a shelter so she could get some education. She passed Class X in the primary division, but extreme poverty forced her to discontinue her studies and work in the fields.
At 16, she was offered to a man who was 10 years older than her, and in the following two years, she turned into the mother of two children. Not an uncommon situation for those facing a life that we ever will be able to imagine.
Poverty is their common ground, hunger is their best friend, and illiteracy will pursue them for life.
The privation made her restless. She had two girls to feed. Started to work in the fields for a day-by-day wage of Rs. 5. ($0.077). These circumstances made her significantly stronger to stand up and fight.
In 1988, she joined as an adult education teacher at a remuneration of Rs 120 a month. In those days, Rs 120 was a lot of money for me. I could at least buy fruit and milk for my children.
Despite her husband's objection, she moved out of the town with her children. She figured out how to typewrite and joined a speciality course. Aside from her very bad monetary circumstances, she additionally needed to battle with family and society to do what she needed to do.
She got the level of BA from Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Open College in 1994 and completed a postgraduate degree from the Kakatiya College on weekends and acquired it in 1997.
This made her get a teacher job for a salary of Rs. 398 per month. She used to travel for two hours to reach her school. The journey would cost me more than my salary. I used to sell sarees on the train every day to earn extra money.
Her struggle for life made her become conscious about the time and it showed her the ways to utilize the time available.
I secured a job as the librarian and joined an open school where I went every Sunday to continue with the studies, she said to Times of India.
One day, Jyothi saw her cousin, who came from the US in 98, and wondered about the difference in their lifestyles. Decided to learn software courses. She moved to US by leaving her two daughters in a missionary hostel.
In 2000, I went to the US, where my husband’s cousin was. I took a job in a shop earning $60 for a 12-hour job and stayed as a paying guest.
The World of Dreams
Her initial start in the US was a period marked with struggles. She had to work in a gas station, work as a babysitter, load/unload goods and work at a video shop for her survival. She then joined a company called CS America as a recruiter.
That was the beginning of her entrepreneurial dreams. Though I wasn’t fluent in English then, I overcame all challenges and gradually started my own company.
Philanthropic Work
With her children settled in the US, she has planned to start her dream project which will provide placement to more than 1000 youths and to start a school from LKG to PG.
On her birthday, she goes to India and celebrates it in orphanages in Warangal. She also sponsors some mentally challenged kids' homes where there are 220 children.
She has held hands with other similar NGOs. Also formed a Pressure Group Force for Orphan Rights and Community Empowerment (FORCE).
Her struggle and perseverance will be around for years to come and will be the light for all women who fight poverty and equal rights in a society covered by their own ghosts.
From the fields of Warangal, where she used to earn Rs 5 per day, to becoming the Chief of a product organization in the US, it has been a long journey for Anila Jyothi Reddy.
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