Hello everyone, my name is Asfiya Ayat, I am 20 years old and I come from Kaliganj, Lalmonirhat, but now I live in Rangpur City.
Like most of the girls from the village I grew up in, I never thought I would work at such a young age… But one day I heard about LP4Y and Green Village from one of my friends. I originally thought it was computer training, but when I called them, they explained to me what it was really about and that made me very motivated! I came to visit the center with my family, and all the present Youth were so welcoming and gentle to me that my family allowed me to join the training.
I still remember how scared I was on my first day and the moment I made the interview to join my Micro-Company… Indeed, I joined the Digital Center Micro-Company, as a communication and IT Officer, but I have also been elected as a Youth Leader, meaning I was helping the coaches to supervise the 35 Youth in the center outside of working hours. My three months of training taught me a lot. Before joining I was very shy, I was not able to talk in public and I was very intimidated by computers, but now that I have overcome this, I have gained a lot of self-confidence and skills.
The moment I left the center was full of emotions, but I was so excited to seek for a job… Unfortunately, job seeking was difficult because for the women neglected by the society, people think they don’t need a job and keep asking them questions like “why do you want to work?”.
So, I started to lose hope and motivation, but one day the GV team called me and invited me for an interview to temporarily replace a Coach who had to go back to his country for administrative issues. I was very excited by this proposal, and after 3 interviews, they told me I was the selected one!
That’s how I went back to Green Village with my family again, and my family members were, once again, very well welcomed by the Catalysts. I felt so happy to join the Catalyst team, and also to be able to enter the Catalyst areas, where I couldn’t go as a Youth, it truly felt like a dream come true.
Thus, I felt very lucky to be there and it gave me a huge motivation to perform my duties with confidence and dedication. I felt very supported by the Catalyst team and I received many encouraging feedbacks, which gave me a boost of motivation for my job searches, and only a few days after leaving Green Village, I had an interview in a hospital, which I managed very successfully, and got confirmed for the job.
That is why I decided to move to Rangpur City, where I joined an apartment shared with two girls I met in Green Village who were also working here.
Unfortunately, two days before my starting date, the hospital called me to say that they wouldn’t need me after all… That made me very sad but it didn’t break my motivation. I remembered that Coaches told me that “the only way to never find a job is to stop looking”, so I continued my research very hard.
A few days later, I found a job announcement on Facebook and I decided to drop my CV. It was again for a position of hospital receptionist, and I was selected for an interview, which I managed so well that they asked me to start directly by the day after.
This is where I still work now, surrounded by very nice people and I feel very good!
All work and job searches require a lot of willpower and I had to overcome many job-seeking difficulties and many obstacles to reach there. But I want to advise people in the same situation:
Don’t take these obstacles too personally, don’t care too much about them, go ahead with patience, motivation and confidence, and you will end up reaching your goals!
Asfiya Ayat.