Jyotsna Creats History For The First Time In India By Establishing Special School

Women are like the sky. Limitless and endless. Their sacrifice, contributions are infinite. They are indestructible and never let the star inside them to dim even in the toughest war. This month. Bongjournal / qtvlive is celebrating International women's day by   unveiling inspiring stories of those remarkable women.

There Is a saying that  never dreams about success. worked for it . And exactly this is how Jyotsna Waghmare sees her life and also encourages others. She's a special educator and started a school named Dakshinya Academy for Autisand learning disability children. Dakshinya is the first special school in India to receive an international school award from the British Council. Jyotsna Waghmare shares her journey with Pincaster Ruhi Mali.

Two factors inspired me the most, one is my role model and another is the situation. My role model is Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar. I'm from the Buddhist community  and have read enormously about him, his struggle, motivation. These motivated me to do something for the society. 

The second factor is poverty, I was born in family which was economically not so forward and I knew it was very difficult to earn for the livelihood. It was always there in my mind that I have to earn well, I have to support my family. I completed my 12th std, but due to some unfavourable circumstances I have to go for the field of special education. I was in my teenage years, when my father passed away. No one was there in my family to earn. So, I didn't have any option but to earn. I came  to know that a course is going on Diploma & the government is giving you the stipend of 10,000 rupees. And at that time I need that money for my family. I took up the course and I liked it. When I completed my education I decided to continue in the same field. That's how I became a special educator. I chose Autism and learning disability because twenty years ago people were not at all aware what Autism and learning disability is. 

Today also people hardly accept women as a leader. Very few  accept women as a leader. Running a school for middle class family girl is not an easy task. It is indeed not an ordinary job and for that you need your family's support . In an ordinary family it's very difficult to pursue something out of the box . You hardly get any family  support. even I didn't get any support from my family. Initially even  people used to said like, you won't be able to do that, you'll face a lot of struggle. Many suggested that I should go for an eight hours job. Society has that typical intellection that women are not capable to lead any institution or a company. Being from a middle class family every woman or girl have faced these difficulties and questions. Society has already defined the  gender based role. They can't see a woman in the position of  power.  Psychologically they won't accept that.  

Women have some specific qualities like emotional, intelligence, coaching, mentoring, collaboration, participation and because of these qualities she can be a leader. So society has to accept and taken a lot of time to accept women in that position. Even I faced a lot of challenges from my family and community. It took plenty of time and I took challenges to convince them . Society hadn't accepted disability so easily, and I had to put a lot of  effort on each and every stage . Economic support was the most significant barrier in my career, since my family was not in the position to support me economically. Attributable to the pandemic we lost everything, we had to leave our rental places and people again jeered me that if you would have taken a government job you would have been in a better position than today. When I started my own school, my family was not happy, they opposed me. My school principal even  convinced me for a government job. They were very insecure, they said that  it will be very difficult and of course they were right in their point of view as they .

Being a marathi medium student I have always seen that I have to achieve a lot. I was just 12th when I did the course of special education. When I started my career as a special educator, I never thought that I would ever be in that position, but yes I wanted to attain that. I thought that it'll take a lot of time, but I accomplished everything before the 25 th of my age. Consequently, I achieved everything very early in a limited span of time. I had put a lot of effort into my profession.  I used to work for  18 hours . I think hard work and smart work only helps you to achieve your goal in life. It feels very great for me as Dakshinya is the first special school in India to receive an international school award from the British Council.

I feel that our society is very diplomatic. In India women are given the status of goddess and restrictions are imposed on the same goddess. Those days gender discrimination was visible and used to be in highlighted form. Today the scenario has changed to some extent. But still exists to some extent. In today's world also women leave their choices to see smiles on others faces. As per the society women have no right to make their own choices and have their opinion, still we expect women to live their life for others. Being someone's role model is my greatest achievement I feel. Whenever I meet girls or young women they always want to shape their life by listening or seeing my stories. And of course if I see professionally my special school Dakshinya academy has been awarded by british council award for the first time in India. It is a  history itself.  

I would suggest  that focus on how the child wants to learn from you rather than how you want to teach the child. These field has immense scope and  need for a really good special educator. Therefore if someone really wants to to enter this profession you're welcome and enjoy the true freedom of working with special needs.

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