Increased women’s workforce participation is a driver of a country’s sustainable growth and therefore indicating the potential to be an economic superpower in the global landscape. Our vision for the Puthris, India’s daughters is to see them creating empowering careers for themselves.

The last five years, we have built an ecosystem of Role Models, Mentors, Career Coaches who influence thousands of young girls through a holistic development transforming young minds to be empowered with skills such as financial acumen, digital knowledge, entrepreneurship, analytics, health, hygiene and so on.

This is a synergized network comprising students, schools, families, mentors, and corporates. This network is a long-lasting connection built consistently over the last five years by our exuberant Puthri team. The diligent efforts of our volunteers, role models and mentors have yielded encouraging results in the form of confident Puthris who are now ready to take on the real-world challenges.  

This July marked the completion five years of our purposeful and unflinching journey of Project Puthri, which has positively impacted the lives of the girl students who have been part of the project.

Data speaks for itself – more than 5000 beneficiaries have joined hands with Project Puthri; Covid-19 didn’t hamper our growth. It has been an enabler to change and transformation; we covered six districts and more than 62 schools across Tamil Nadu and Puducherry. 25 corporate partners; and 20 educational institutions collaborated with Project Puthri; 8 industrial partnerships; and more than 300 volunteers joined hands with us in this common goal and vision.

As a commemoration of our success of the impact, we gathered to take steeper steps to success -- #vetripadikattu celebrating 5 glorious years of Project Puthri - Ilakku the grand event.

We have taken a gigantic stride towards ensuring our Puthri scholars when they grow up to be the tax-paying citizens of the nation and are at workplaces that support them, ally with them and most importantly that are sensitive enough to embrace their individualities. My dear friends, am happy and proud to announce that we launched MITR (Men Impacting Trust and Respect) an initiative to usher in the ‘Male Ally’ culture among boys studying in Tamil Nadu Government Schools. TN Minister for School Education, Mr Anbil Mahesh, Poyyamozhi lauded our initiative through a video message saying that “students must place their trust on equality and Project MITR will train our boys to become allies and advocates for their women counterparts at schools, homes, and the society at large. The US Consulate General, Ms Judith Ravin, the Guest of Honor at Puthri Ilakku gave away the recognition awards to the corporates at the event. More than 20 corporates, hundreds of volunteers, Principals of schools from different zones, and over 300 students gathered at the Puthri Ilakku 2022 event.

The grand celebration would not have been possible without the relentless work done by each one of you reading this newsletter at different stages – by sponsoring learning devices, spending your precious chair time to our Puthris, as cheerleaders to us and much more. It is your passion and commitment that drives us to dream more, to achieve more. Together, let’s build a nation by not only educating our young girls, but guiding the young boys to be the adults of tomorrow who are gender aware, operate productivity in gender diverse teams. Together #vetripadikattuvom!

Warm regards,

Dr. Saundarya Rajesh

Managing Trustee, Avtar Human Capital Trust