“I wish Unnati had trained me for longer” – A Quest for knowledge

Karthik – 34th Batch – Guest Care – 91-7411677023

Karthik is a person of few words, and much action. He was born and raised in the Karaikudi district of Tamil Nadu, and lost his father when he was young. His mother supported the family by working as a housemaid. He was in no position to provide any numbers for monthly income, since the source of income was so unsteady, and there was only one breadwinner. When Karthik was in school, he moved to Bangalore with his mother in search of greener pastures. Karthik could not complete his S.S.L.C due to the situation at home, which was a struggle for him, both mentally and financially.

Once he knew that he could not continue his education, Karthik started doing daily jobs – he would paint, work in a tiles factory – would do just about any labour that came his way for daily wages. All along, his mother continued to work at multiple homes in order to bring home her share of the earnings. Even at this juncture, life was not easy for Karthik’s family because of the rising financial expenses in a large city like Bangalore.

The owner of the house where Karthik’s mother worked was a benevolent woman. She chanced upon a notice from Unnati one day, and after reading through the contents, immediately thought of Karthik. She convinced Karthik’s mother that it was the best option available to  him, in terms of making him “employable” and finding him a full time job.

Karthik came to Unnati and joined the 34th batch. He chose the Guest Care vocation. Unlike the others, Karthik is unable to pick one subject as his favourite. He says every subject taught at Unnati was so important to him in terms of transforming him and shaping his career and personality. Given his humble background, the exposure Karthik got at Unnati was phenomenal. On insistence, he mentioned the following three as the most salient takeaways from the training for him

• The importance of being clean, both in thought and in person.

• Corporate etiquette – how to behave in an office, with colleagues and customers.

• Communication – the need for English and the training on spoken English.

In fact, Karthik seems to have been so involved in the training that, in retrospect, he feels that the training should have been for 4 months at least in order for him to have learnt more and be an even better person.

Karthik’s first job after completing Unnati was at Cuppa. He was placed at the Bannerghatta Road store and was paid Rs. 84000 annually. That was the first ever formal paycheck his family ever received.

Since the store was way too far from his residence – he had to leave at 6amand could return only around 11pm everyday – Karthik took the hard decision to quit.

Once he quit, Karthik had considered going back to his earlier daily job, but the training at Unnati gave him the confidence to pursue excellence – he was not going to settle for anything ordinary. So when Karthik knew of a Guest care opportunity at the Taj group of hotels, he immediately applied and landed himself that job. Karthik deals with many customers in his job, and the communication skills he learnt at Unnati are helping him every minute.He now earns over Rs. 1,00,000 an annum and is very happy with his current job and his employer. He says he could not have dreamt of anything close to this, if not for Unnati.

Karthik says he will recommend Unnati  to his friends and wants many more people to benefit like he did.

The Unnati team is very happy about Karthik’s progress and would like to wish him the very best in his professional life!

Contribution by Sukanya Kuppuswamy (Volunteer)

Team Unnati