Mentor | Madhuri Dass Woudenberg
“As a founder of “Heads High,” a person who will be meeting a lot of people to seek help, I’ve learnt the following that will help me make a statement: Think through your motive/conversation flow, let them know the intent loud and clear to gain their trust, lend yourself more than you take, keep a check on what drives you, be prepared, be honest about yourself.”
— From a thank you letter Madhu Priya wrote at the end of the contact program in September 2021.
In Madhu Priya’s own words:
“I recently started an NGO when I got to The Goa School, meaning I had registered an NGO, so only the name (Heads High) was registered, but I really didn’t know how I was going to take this forward. Basically, it was very foundation level. But when I came here, I started to realise that I could do more, and that’s when I thought ok, now I’ll have to start dedicating more time (towards the NGO I started).
Madhuri for example, she also has a profession, but The Goa School is her passion, this is her dream that she is working on. So I thought we both are in similar phases, so I’m going to start taking this NGO seriously. That’s a change that happened in me, where I took things seriously, and said, I’m not going to let anything stop me.
This NGO is to help underprivileged kids, with financial aid, specifically. This is the first year, when I just founded it with my husband, only in the starting phase. Now we’ve started getting applications for students to enrol into the NGO. This is the first year, but we’re excited about how the results are going to look. For now, I really don’t have results to show, I only have the effort that we can talk about.
There is another thing that changed my life completely. When I was in Goa I came with my husband and daughter…we had a lot of time to try new things, so that’s when we decided to try out more Instagram reels (which went viral). Not that The Goa School asked me to do reels, but still, I would always think about The Goa School and thank them for that opportunity. Without them, we wouldn’t have tried something new. Follow Madhu Priya on Instagram.
During the whole experience (at The Goa School) I was trying to understand who I really am, because these 5-6 days, I was completely (switched) off (from) my professional world. After almost five years of continuously working in the corporate field (as an HR professional), I took a whole week gap, just to see who I am, and understand what I am capable of. I really got out of my comfort zone, because of the realisation that I got from there.
I think for the rest of the people who will attend The Goa School, I would say it’s about what you want to learn and trying to understand yourself. Like I said, the whole new experience thing is what changed me. Anybody who is going to attend The Goa School will have to go in with a clean slate and open mind.”
This storyboard is based on an interview conducted by Seher Arora, as part of her internship at The Goa School, in July 2022.
