Meera wants to become a teacher

Meera is 18 year old and is in the 9th grade at Pardada Pardadi Inter College, a school in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. Her father, Kalyan, is a farmer and her mother, Pueshpa, is a housewife. Her four brothers and one sister live with her and her parents in a nearby village.

Pardada Padadi (PPES) realizes that the cycle of poverty can be broken only by educating and empowering the weakest members of society: rural female children. The organization provides rural girls with both a value-based education and vocational skill training. The organization has also initiated the unique concept of providing monetary incentives for families to send their girls to school, including depositing ten rupees per day (about $.20 US) in the bank account of a girl for attending school. The girls from PPES will graduate with the equivalent of a high school diploma, marketable skills in textile work, a nest-egg of approximately 30,000 rupees ($600), social and developmental skills, and an assured job at PPES.

Meera’s favorite subject at the Inter College is English. She wants to one day become a teacher. Thank you, Friedman Group at UBS, for giving a young girl like Meera a year of computer training and English speaking classes.