Asha K is the placement officer at Careship, one of Quest Alliance’s implementing civil society organization partners in Bengaluru. The inspiration to teach came from her mother, who is a trainer for young girls as well. “I saw my mother do it since I was a young girl, and facilitating came naturally to me,” she says. Her first training role was at a summer camp where she taught fun games and activities to children. “They refused to allow me to train since I was a young student myself. When I was in Class 8, I convinced them to allow me to train young children and thus my training years began,” she says with a smile. Soon, she was training 13 to 14 year-old kids in personality development. All was going well until she failed Class 12. Her family was unhappy but proposed the idea of marriage as a solution. “My family has this unspoken rule. Both my sisters were married off when they failed Class 12,” she says. She convinced her parents to wait for a few more years and decided to study facilitation for vocational training institutes. “The manager of the center where I was studying was also a member of Careship, and he suggested that I join here as a computer course trainer.”

Asha realized at Careship that she had to be a continuous learner to keep up with the changing times. It was a challenge for her to teach students over the age of 18. Careship helped her upskill in counseling and life skills training. In 2018, Quest Alliance partnered with Careship and has since provided various avenues for her to upskill. She has attended over five residential Training of Trainers and various workshops. “The ‘why’ of my job was clear then. I knew how to mobilize students, find out why they are not interested in taking up a job and it changed how I work,” she says. “I was very technologically challenged,” Asha confesses. During the COVID-19 lockdown, Careship was forced to go online, and had to adapt to virtual mobilization, training and placements. Trainings provided by Quest Alliance on Zoom helped her navigate it. “We have now come to the point where we conduct hybrid classes, which are both online and offline,” she says. She completed MasterCoach, an online professional development program for educators by Quest Alliance. “With all these learnings, I hope to start a training center of my own someday,” she says. Although Asha's name means "hope," it is her tenacity and zeal that truly embody it.