Portal of Hope ; in the Six Years Since It Was Set Up, Dr Reddy's Foundations' Livelihood Advancement Business School has Helped Prepare Some 35,000 Underprivileged Youngsters for Entry-Level Jobs.

Summary

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In August 2001, when Laxmi B. (she wouldn't spell out the initial) turned 18, there was little to cheer. Daughter of modestly- employed parents (her father worked at a printing press and her mother packed cartons in a pharmaceuticals company), Laxmi had just been forced to drop out of high school and help make ends meet. But what kind of a job could a high-school dropout hope to get? A little bit of seeking and asking led her to the Hyderabad-based Dr Reddy's Foundation, which was running a Livelihood Advancement Business School (labs). She applied to the school, took the aptitude test, and got selected for training in customer relationship and sales.

After three months of training, Laxmi found herself a job with Ion Exchange as a sales trainee for direct marketing of the company's water purification system. By the end of eight months, she was already one of the top performers and winner of the Chairman's medal. Today, Laxmi is back at labs, not to train but as a centre coordinator responsible for one of labs' six centres in Hyderabad. Apart from her administrative responsibilities, Laxmi finds time to teach and train many other underprivileged youngsters like herself. It's a job that fetches her between Rs 7,000 and Rs 10,000 a month, but countless more by way of satisfaction.

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Portal of Hope ; in the Six Years Since It Was Set Up, Dr Reddy's Foundations' Livelihood Advancement Business School has Helped Prepare Some 35,000 Underprivileged Youngsters for Entry-Level Jobs.

Laxmi, needless to say, isn't the only one to have walked through the portals of labs and find her life changed. There's Madhavi, a carpenter's daughter, who today is a data entry operator at Bodhtree, a Hyderabad-based it consulting and product development company; Subhashini, a 10th-grade pass w...

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