My name is M. Margaret.
I am 22 years old. I was born on April 25, 2001, in Chennai city, Tamil Nadu, where I grew up.
I have a younger brother. We live with our parents. My parents' names are Mariyadass and Metilda Mary. They have both been working since the ages of 13 and 15 respectively. My father is working as a watchman in a residential apartment and my mother is working as a domestic worker. My brother has a Diploma in Electrical Engineering programme but he is currently jobless. Even after doing a one-year apprenticeship at Chennai airport, it is tough for him to find a job. I completed my schooling through a scholarship in Chennai. For my brother’s and my higher education, my parents had to borrow money from others to pay the tuition fee. Afterward, they struggled a lot to repay that money.
I am the first person to graduate from my family. I am a B.SC.,B.ED graduate, a 4 year integrated course that enables one to become a teacher in maths and sciences in school. But places are limited and at the end of my course, I didn’t get a job.
Giving her family a better life
During my childhood, we lived in a small house that was built using dried coconut leaves. On rainy days it was tough to live there: as the roof was made of dried coconut leaves, it would leak whenever it rained. The area we lived in was not that safe as there were a lot of vehicles around, so me and my brother used to play inside the house only. Our childhood was not that simple. I remember that one day, the corporation authority demolished our house and we had to stay in the street for almost 2 days after that. At that time, my brother and I were very young and I cannot remember the details, but I remember that I was scared, and thought why is it happening to us?
After that, lots of things happened in our lives, we had to face challenges in our day-to-day lives. When I was studying 9th std, we got allotted a house in Ezhil Nagar through a slum clearance board. Life was not really easy for us in Ezhil Nagar, we faced different kinds of problems: financially, because of relatives, etc. At that time, my mother needed a major operation after which she had to rest for a whole month. My parents used to argue and quarrel a lot, which affected the overall well-being of my family, and added a strong mental pressure. In addition, I too had health problems: polycystic ovary syndrome, kidney stone and low hemoglobin level.
I eventually started to understand life and people. In these few years, my family has seen different phases of life. We learned about people around us, whom we can count on and whom we cannot. In all this money and people played a big role. These were the toughest years of our life. It took some time for us to recover from that psychological pressure. The Covid lockdown period helped us heal slowly. We spent more time together and got to understand each other.
After this period, everything was going fine. When I finished college, my mother had another major operation. Her uterus was fully removed, which finally helped her to heal. However, the financial problems remained. I came to LP4Y in the hope of achieving something big and I really hope LP4Y would be my first step towards that. My challenge is to help my parents and give my family a better life.
Learn, improve and inspire people to achieve their dreams
I want to be someone who faced challenges and inspires people to achieve their dreams. I want to have my own identity and I want to create my own individual identity. I always think big, because I want to achieve big.
The only person I want to prove I am capable of great things is myself. I want to prove to myself that I am capable of doing anything and everything, and I know the biggest and toughest opponent one could face in their life is themselves only.
I know that, to achieve something big one needs to work hard, and I am ready to work hard, ready to face challenges and ready to learn new things. After joining LP4Y I discovered that I have so many hidden skills and talents, so I want to improve and develop those. I can already see that my skills are improving. I seem to be more confident and I can see some improvements in my personality as well, for which I am happy.
I really hope LP4Y will be my first step towards my dream and I hope through this I can give my family a better life and I really think I will be successful. I hope to learn more in LP4Y and I want to make my parents proud. Lastly, I may be born as an ordinary person but I am sure I will not die as being the same ordinary person. Let's hope for a better future!