Challenge the challenges and walk on the path of success with inner eyes.

An inspiring story of a small-town visually impaired girl …..

 

Tejaswini Pawar, 28 years old born and brought up in a small village in Maharashtra near Kolhapur, which is about 400 km from Mumbai. Born in a family of farmers – parents metric pass, do farming for living on their small piece of 5-acre land. Tejaswini’s parents manage to grow sugarcane for commercial purposes and other grains like wheat, rice, pulses, peanuts, sunflower; just enough for their home consumption with the available resources.

Tejaswini was born visually impaired, but this has not been an impediment in her pursuing education and getting a Master’s degree in Arts. Tejaswini is 3^rd child among the four siblings. All her siblings except her younger sister have studied till Class 10. Tejaswini studied in a mainstream school in her hometown up to Class 3. Looking at her interest in studies, a friendly neighbor suggested a school for differently-abled children in Kolhapur –  a metro city, 50 km from her hometown.
This also meant that she had to stay in the school hostel as she could not travel to and fro to the school each day. Her parents were apprehensive to keep her in a hostel as she had never been away from home.

Desire & Determination is the key to keep moving to achieve the goal!

Tejaswini was determined to study and so her parents gave in to her desire to study and she moved to the differently-abled school in Kolhapur. Gradually, Tejaswini adjusted to the new school, hostel and started learning Braille.

Being a brave heart, plus an extrovert, Tejaswini soon befriended many girls and started enjoying her school and hostel life. She not only excelled in Academics but was good in Sports too.

She was good in  Athletics and Chess and went ahead to represent her state – Maharashtra – in Athletics and Chess championship for the differently-abled.

Braille was taught in the school up to Class 4, after which; in absence of school for differently-abled children, Tejaswini joined the mainstream school in Class 5 and completed her Class 10 SSC board exam with 86% marks in the mainstream; an achievement in itself!

A school friend of Tejaswini who is visually impaired and also from the same differently-abled school came to Mumbai and recommended her to move to Mumbai for higher education. Determined to study further, Tejaswini and her friend managed to convince her parents to grant permission to study in Mumbai.

She moved to Mumbai and took admission for Class 11 in Bhavan’s College, a reputed college in Mumbai and stayed in Industrial hostel.

While she moved to an industrial hostel for one year where skills such as mobility for differently-abled, making bags, boxes, cartons, etc. are taught and this contribution was exchanged for lodging and boarding facilities for differently-abled.

Her studious bent of mind soon came to the fore and Industrial hostel authority encouraged Tejaswini to continue her studies. Here she worked in the day and studied in the evening and in the night and managed to complete her Class 11. It is challenging to study Junior College for the visually impaired as they have to depend on readers – people who can read books aloud to them; since books are available in Braille only up to Class 10.

Now that she wanted to focus on her Class 12 studies, she decided to move to another college and another hostel. She got admission in a government hostel on merit basis due to her good score in the Class 10 Board exam.

Tejaswini did not shy and took the help of readers to study for the Class 11 and Class 12 Board exam. She passed with flying colors – scored 76% in the Class 12 Board exam in the mainstream.

Tejaswini continued to study and took up Bachelor of Arts for graduation in SIES College Mumbai, which waived 50% of the tuition fees and the government hostel gave Rs.800/- stipend per month for traveling and other petty expenses. She traveled from the government hostel in Worli, Mumbai to SIES College in Sion, Mumbai – a distance of 10 kilometers, by public transport every day for her graduation.

She had to put in a lot of effort to understand the academics in English as the medium changed from Marathi to English in her graduation and for this she took the help of multiple readers to study her graduation subjects (Bachelor of Arts).
She completed  Master of Arts with Hindi as her major subject from the same college. Though she specialised in Hindi, Tejaswini knew that she could not afford to neglect English, being one of the official languages in India. To enhance her fluency in English and to grow her vocabulary, she continued to listen to English audios.

Step in real-world and become “job-ready”, pursued IT courses

Tejaswini knew that she was in Mumbai for a long haul, and realized that she needed IT skills to make herself job-ready.

She completed MSc IT – A three-month course that teaches Basic and screen reader software (used by differently-abled). She also did a short course from Tata Consultancy Services for soft skills and interview skills along with her Bachelor of Arts.

After completing post-graduation; financial independence is what she desired. Her friend who had always been a big support, suggested she take up a job. Backed with good academics and IT skills, Tejaswini cleared the interview and was selected in a company in May 2019 with a good salary with which she could support her family apart from meeting her own expenses.

Her company is a pioneer in digital accessibility testing and serves 14 countries globally. More than 65% of their employees are differently-abled and they are the leaders in accessibility testing in India.

Tejaswini‘s work involves checking the documents and the material for accessibility for visually impaired persons. She works on books, documents that come from across the globe to ensure accessibility because accessibility is an important regulation to be met in several developed countries of the world.

Tejaswini is known to be a workaholic in her office and is appreciated for being able to deliver on time. She mentors new joinees who are differently-abled and enjoys giving back to society. Tejaswini likes to help others learn English and she is known as the go-to person in her hostel for English clarification.

Her hobbies include music and reading. She listens to motivational biographies, autobiographies, and audiobooks. She always has a desire to learn new things and follow her passion. She has also cleared three exams in Hindustani classical music.

A Mentor’s support helped her to achieve her Goals!
(Er. Sonali Khedkar – IT professional with more than 25 years of experience in the corporate world.) 

Tejaswini has a desire to become a translator for Hindi-English-Hindi and was looking for a reader to help her study Staff Selection Commission exam material.

As the saying goes ” Where there is a will there is a way!”

Through a friend, she contacted Sonali in May 2020, who would read English and Hindi material for Tejaswini. Tejaswini with the help of Sonali cleared the first level and second level exam with flying colors. Reading helped Tejaswini to gain confidence in English and face the exam.
Being a disciplined person, Tejaswini wants to pursue improving her English and therefore requested Sonali to continue to read one news article every day. While this is a choice, Tejaswini makes it a point to get an article read and explained every day to improve her English vocabulary and increase general awareness, which would otherwise get relegated to a later point in time or maybe never!

Mentoring Tesjaswini to enhance her English and general awareness has helped her mentor – Sonali in honing her English skills as well, as she reads varied news each day!

Tejaswini wants to share her learning with other differently-abled people and help them grow. She wants to work towards ensuring that academic material is available in Braille and in audio format online up to Class 12 and beyond;  something that she really missed.

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