I wished upon a star; Unnati made my dream come true!

Rajkumar – 1st Batch (Computer Engineers) – Dickenson Road – 88929-33272

‘’ – Dr. Kalam re-quotes this famous Walt Disney dialogue in ‘Reignited’.

Rajkumar had a dream. And as Dr. Abdul Kalam’s often professed, it was a dream that never let him sleep. He always dreamt of working well in a corporate setup and doing his parents proud.

Rajkumar’s background will help you understand why this seemingly small wish was actually huge from his perspective.

Rajkumar hails from a small town in Bihar. His parents were not treated well in his hometown, so they had to migrate to Ghazipur in Uttar Pradesh. Raj’s father did multiple small chores to support his family – he would sell ice creams, bangles, small snacks etc.Raj had a brother and 2 sisters.  

The income from selling ice creams and snacks in a small town was far from enough to feed the family of 6. So Raj’s father opened a small hotel in the same town. This made life slightly better but the family was barely making ends meet.

During these years, Raj had his primary education at an Ashram in Bihar, and joined his family in Ghazipur for middle school. He says his father’s income in a peak-business month would be around Rs. 10,000. But this was never steady.

Disaster struck the family when Rajkumar was in standard nine. In a serious attack on the family (he first called this an accident, but later mentioned the attack. Burglary is how Rajwould like to put it), Raj’s family lost all their belongings, and worse, lost the other brother!

Caught between devil and deep sea, the family decided to migrate back to their hometown in Bihar (where they were originally treated like outcasts).  

None of this deterred Raj’s pursuit of education. He aimed to make his parents feel proud, and hold their heads high in a society that deprived them of any happiness.

He completed schooling in Bihar and went to Bhubaneswar, Odisha to do his Engineering degree in Computer Science.

Raj graduated in 2014, and finding a job was a huge struggle. First, he lacked self-confidence. He would hesitate to speak to anyone, and his tier-3 background did not help him face any interview.

As is the case with thousands of prospective IT professionals, Raj decided to move to Bangalore hoping to find the job that will help him attain his goal. Hope began to fade away after months of futile search.

One of those days, he was looking at a website (Freshers World) that spoke about Unnati and their plan to start training for Computer Science engineers. Raj realised he found what he needed. He quickly enrolled in the first batch of Computer Science engineer training at Dickenson Road.

Following is Raj’s account of the transformation, after joining Unnati:

“I had a lot of stage fear; I could not talk to anyone senior, since I would struggle for sentences, for the right words. In fact, I had no belief in myself. When I joined Unnati, I never knew I would attain this level of achievement and confidence that I have today.

Unnati taught me self-confidence; Unnati taught me to believe in myself, and told me that my struggles would soon be a thing of the past. They identified and showed me my strengths; gave me opportunities to break my inhibitions. They also taught me core skills like SQL, Operating Systems, HTML, Cloud concepts etc.

Once the course was over, I was the first person to be selected in EMC2 . They have offered me 4.92Lakhs annually, and I cannot ask for more! This is the happiest phase of my life, and my parents are very proud of me today.

I could not have done any of this without Unnati. Unnati is my extended family. The amount of support and encouragement that I got at Unnati is unimaginable!”

Needless to mention, the entire discussion with Raj was in English. After joining EMC2 , he had to immediately clear 6 exams. He failed the first one, but the values instilled in the Unnati helped him ace the rest (and the intial one) with an average of 80%.

Even on the day we spoke to him, Raj had cleared a tough certification exam with ease, and was more confident about the next one.

Raj now wants to put in hard work and wants to be an integral, indispensable part of EMC2 in future. This, he says, is the best way he can thank his parents (who helped him so much amidst their struggles) and Unnati, the institution that gave him new wings of confidence and a job that’ll propel him higher and higher!

Good luck, Rajkumar! Team Unnati needs ambassadors like you to take the new program forward.

Contribution by Volunteer Sukanya Kuppuswamy