Salute to resilience talent, perseverance

Her company is a national distributor of ARTronic brand UPS from Europe (AEG group Germany) in India. 

It was Geetha’s multi-tasking ability that had helped her company establish itself amidst stiff competition. Self-confidence, perseverance and the tendency to lend a helping hand to the downtrodden are her strengths. 

“I want to uplift women. A home revolves around her. She cannot shirk her responsibilities as a daughter, mother or wife. But it is also essential for her to take care of her psychological well-being,” says Geetha. As a corporate trainer and psychologist, she is worried about women's mental well-being. She warns that  by 2020, many in India would be affected by depression. 

She feels that youth give little importance to social interaction and blames it on parental attitude. It is they who lure them to gadgets and the youth fail to understand the importance of personal interaction even in minor  matters, she opines. 

She carries this message as an external faculty trainer/ resource person to schools, engineering colleges, deemed universities all over the state. “As a HR trainer for corporate companies and public sector organisations, I try to emphasise on our values. I hope my efforts pay off, she says.   

Recognising her work in the field of education and small scale industries, she was invited as a special guest for an international conference on ‘Trafficking of young women and children’ in Malaysia in 2013. It was organised by the World Youth Foundation, a part of social council of the UN. 

Geetha has presented papers in international conferences on ‘Indian Women Entrepreneurship’ in Texas. Some of the awards won by her include: Best Women Entrepreneur Award for Excellence among SAARC Nationals for the year 2010; Outstanding Achiever of Business Excellence (from all over Indian FLO chapters) award by FICCI-FLO 2013 14. 

The successful entrepreneur known for her integrity and professionalism has also penned a few books. Women should feel proud of themselves, should behave as one emotionally and work parallelly with men. It is the woman who creates or destroys a society and so more responsibility is vested with her than man. There is no way she should feel inferior to one, said Geetha. 

The trend of setting aside family life to build a career should be put under scanner since health complications and fertility issues have been detected, of late, in women, says Dr Kamini Rao. 

Dr Rao is fully geared to make a historic benchmark in the Indian fertility sector. She is all set to conduct India’s first uterus transplant. This is a very bold decision y her to help women born without a uterus. It is sad that 6-7 lakh Indian women have this condition, she said.  

The transplant will also greatly help young women who have lost the organ in accidents or to tumors or diseases such as tuberculosis. 

“At times, women in the reproductive age are forced to undergo a hysterectomy and will be a boon to them,” explains Dr Rao. 

The donors are usually the mothers who are more than willing to help their daughters conceive. The first surgery has been planned in May and they have more than 32 registrations (in the agegroup 28-35. The donors are in the agegroup of 50-55.  

“Two have been selected for the first procedure,” reveals Dr Rao.  “With surrogacy to be banned to our country, this will be a boon to women,” she points out.      

Dr Rao is a Padma Shri awardee and is a pioneer in Assisted Reproduction Treatments (ART). She is the ‘godmother’ of thousands of In-vitro fertilisation (IVF) babies born over the course of two decades. She has been appointed as the brand ambassador for all fertility treatments in Asia and South Africa. Last month, she won the Global Asian of the Year of the award. 

A number of trusts (all of whom are registered) viz. the Nandalala Seva Samithi Trust, Sri Nandalala Religious Trust, Nandalala Medical Foundation, and Yogasaras Educational Academy located in Bengaluru, New Delhi, Hyderabad, TIruchy and Thiruvananthapuram have come up due to the hard work of septuagenarian R Saraswathy (pen name ‘Mathioli R Saraswathy). She has devoted her entire life to philanthropic activities. 

“I believe that children form the foundation of our nation. Through my trusts I take children on the path of love and instill in them value-based systems to make them imbibe our cultural heritage, says Saraswathy.   

Saraswathy who is the driving force behind these trusts is ably assisted by volunteers. Some of their activities include providing financial assistance to economically-deserving students, infrastructure to schools, uniforms, food and conducting camps for children during holidays.  

“Through our Jayalakshmi Ramachandran Scholarship Program we provide financial assistance on a merit cum means basis to deserving students to pursue professional courses,” says Saraswathy. 

Managed under the banner of Nandalala Medical Foundation Saraswathy has also set up a low-cost dialysis centre. There are also clinics for ENT care, eye care, physiotherapy and acupressure clinic. “Writing is close to my heart. I have released books on  Christmas for more than three decades now, says the philanthropist.  Saraswathy was awarded the National NCERT award by the Govt. of India, in 1993 and 1997, for her books on children. She was awarded a gold medal in 1991 for her book on science “Vinnilirundhu mann varai” by Children’s Writers’ Association.