Rethinking Success: Role of Creating Opportunities for Development

Working closely with children in communities from the most underprivileged rungs of India for over a decade, our ideas and understandings around success and leadership are questioned relentlessly. What is seen as a success in the communities of rural India has a world’s difference from the successes of the corporate kingdoms in Chicago.

“I was a meritorious student throughout my education- but if it wasn’t for NSF, who gave me scholarship to continue my education, I wouldn’t be where I am today. After spending 16 years in USA working as a software consultant, I quit my job and returned to India in Dec 2012. Since then I have been exploring various ways to uplift the education sector and trying my best to make a positive difference in the society.

I am now the founder and mentor at Padala Charitable Trust (PCT) India. It feels great when the younger generation connects with me so well when I share my life journey. I only tell them how I reached from one end to the other and I challenge them to do the same. Each time I interact with a group young or old, I am told that my story inspires them. Thanks to NSF for playing a key role in my life!

Padala Surya Prasad, Founder & Mentor PCT

I believe success must also be thought in terms of the opportunities one gets- NSF made those options possible for me. Now, our team is trying relentlessly to create more such opportunities for the under-privileged and marginalized. The following article is a success story of a women’s self help group in a rural corner of India- Mallavaram.”_ Padala Surya Prasad, Founder and Mentor at Padala Charitable Trust (PCT India).

A success story from rural India

By excluding a discussion on the availability of opportunities while talking about success, aren’t we reducing the idea of success to an end destination? By forming ideas of success devoid of the conditions and contexts, we are thinking of success as a static end result.

It can be a bit of a challenge, to have a singular idea of success. Recently, a group of women from the remote corners of a village- Mallavaram started stitching their own stories of success. When a free tailoring center for women was started, 40 members enrolled. They also enthusiastically participated in our sessions on menstrual hygiene and leadership development.

As we were about to set up a dressmaking unit at the village to enable opportunities for self-employment, the corona lockdown started and the idea got postponed. When we reached out to them a couple of weeks later, we discovered that these women stitched free cotton masks and distributed it for free among the agricultural laborers and local community.

Text Book Definitions of Success

If you ask us to share inspiring success stories, we can share the story of these women from rural India: the story of women who displayed amazing initiative rising to be community volunteers amidst a pandemic, the story of women who redefined the constricting ideals enforced by patriarchy and the story of those women who are slowly paving their way to becoming entrepreneurs, sharing the financial burdens to solve their poverty problems.

This village that sits in the middle of lush green rice fields is inhabited by communities that never allowed women to step outside their homes. So this was a group of path breakers. If you ask us what leaders are made of, we’ll show you these enterprising women of Mallavaram. They identified the mask crisis that occurred due to the pandemic, discussed among themselves, drew a plan of action, and successfully implemented it.

A local NGO heard about this and ordered masks against payment. This is the first order that the group received. This became a starting point for them to utilize their skills in managing their livelihood. PCT also ordered 1000 masks to be distributed among the red zones of the East Godavari District.

People from underprivileged backgrounds fighting all odds, crossing hurdles by hustling, helping the community, and walking towards self-empowerment: this sounds like a perfect recipe for a success story, doesn’t it?

Reviewing our ideas of success: the opportunity dilemma

But this is not the story of many women in rural India, this is an exception. It could be. The other women never got an opportunity to try. This is the opportunity gap we forget about when we talk about success.

When we start thinking of success as a process by considering the contexts and backgrounds, we shift focus to creating the conditions for success. In a country where there is an imbalance in the availability of required opportunities to achieve success, we must also think of creating opportunities before thinking of success.

If we classify success and failure only based on what people achieve and what they don’t, how do we classify those women who could never step outside their houses, who did not even have a chance to try? We need to definitely look at the role of creating opportunities for a success story, especially in a country where opportunities are not homogenous.

More often than not, in celebrating success, we forget that the opportunity played a bridge in making the success a possible reality. Until the tailoring unit was started at Mallavaram, there was no avenue to step out to. These women now have a window of opportunity to step into the realms of self-employment and self- sustenance. This project gave them a reason to come out of their confinements and support their families.

The women became torch bearers in their own right and turned their potential and hard work into a success story. But an extra external effort had to be made to extend opportunities to them. While looking at these women, we also feel responsibility; a responsibility to extend such opportunities, for other potential entrepreneurs to try and check if they can be successful?

– Pavani Sairam