In the 21st century, from travelling to space to being the President of a country, women are playing a leading role in every sphere of life. They are matching up the pace of men & leaving them behind in certain sectors. Nothing could be real success of India than women entrepreneurs of today, who are chartering unknown territories fearlessly & successfully, be it in ecommerce, education, investing, travel, fashion, retail, fitness, hiring, childcare and anything and everything.
In women empowerment, education & social support plays a crucial role. And these women are doing it well by leading the education & daycare industry. These empowered leading ladies of south India are successfully running their venture in childcare Industry to support other working women:
Jaya Sastri, Founder-director of SEED
Jaya Sastri is the founder-director of SEED. She was the Director of Programs at Headstart in the U.S. She has also founded and successfully ran her own international school in Nigeria.
With her vast experience over 30 years in the field of education and child development both abroad and India, Jaya brings a fierce passion for developing the leaders of tomorrow. She founded Seed in 2004 in India. SEED has constantly delivered quality education in the pre-primary segment over the past 14 years & rated one of the top 3 preschools in Chennai.
Talking about the journey she says, “It is not money but the idea of making learning fun which motivated her to start a school with innovative educational models. SEED believes in fostering each child’s individual needs through innovative methods and a time tested curriculum.”
Sridevi Raghavan, Co-founder and CEO of Amelio
Sridevi, the cofounder of Amelio is an alumni of Harvard Business School (HBS), when she was working as an advertising professional in Bangalore; she noticed that a number of her senior colleagues found it extremely difficult to manage work and home. She felt unfair that women have to make a choice between work and family, she wondered whether a childcare centre at or near the work place could actually help working mothers continue with their careers. That’s how the idea of Amelio came into her mind and she started Amelio in 2009 to help other working women.
Sridevi says “The name Amelio was actually the last name we came up with, just the night before we were to present our business plan at HBS.We were ‘ameliorating’ the situation for working mothers in India and thus the name Amelio and We are proud to have pioneered the setting up of onsite childcare centres in India.”
Preeta Suri, Managing Director of Kanchana Paati
Preeta while working in a corporate & managing family was in search of a quality daycare for her daughter, but she was unable to find something as per her expectation also she found that many of other parents were struggling to find quality daycare for their child. Therefore she decided to cater to the needs of quality daycare and started the venture of Kanchana Paati on August 15th, 2006.
It was named as Kanchana Paati”. (Paati in Tamil means grand mom). Their mission was to provide a flexible, convenient, high quality child care service to a parent, and the fun and excitement of a Grandma’s place for their child.
Revathy shivakumar, Founder of Go Bananas
The leading lady of Go Bananas is an alumni of Indian School of Business Management and Administration and IVD Netherlands and post that she had worked in Clarke school for the deaf as a Speech Language Pathologist. To conquer the need of quality daycare that could provide healthy environment, good habits of cleanliness, time management and regular learning through play for kids, she took a brave decision of opening Go Bananas. Go bananas aim at overall development of children; they are using a play way method of learning and provide a quiet, hygienic atmosphere & activities like reading books, conversing with friends, Slokas, Storytelling and Yoga. Go Bananas is IISO 9001: 2015 certified daycare centre. A unique feature of their daycare programme includes daily information about the child’s activities in school through VPNS – (Parent Notification Cell.
Arnica Bahadur, founder/director of Anant Enterprises / franchise of Vels Vidyashram, Sholinganallur
A psychology graduate and an MBA in Education Management. Arnica always had great passion for holistic child development. Hailing from Allahabad, Arnica moved in Chennai along with her husband in 2010 and since then started her preschool and early child care centre. An earlier shy and coy housewife, she transformed into an expert counsellor for Parents and recognised Montessori teacher’s trainer.
“Rote learning takes away creativity from our young kids and focussing on uniqueness brings out their individual talent” says Arnica.
Arnica is also an author/ writer, her first book on Hindi poetry titled “Anupama” got published in Feb, 2018. Vel’s Vidyashram Kindergarten Sholinganallur is considered one of the best group of institution in India providing top notch education to children of early stage.
ProEves supports and encourage these inspiring stories of leading ladies of India. The idea of women helping other women succeeds – both personally and professionally is not new. These women have power to create change & we must say they are doing it well.
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