When Latha Sundaram got a letter from the consultants of the Women Achievers Award project by the Ministry of Women & Child Development in the fag end of 2015, she chose to keep it under wraps. Latha won the award for her contribution to “Access to justice and protection of women and their rights” in the #100 women contest to recognize women who are the pride of the nation.
“Frankly speaking, I never expected to win this award. So, I waited until I got the official confirmation from the Union Ministry. Once the list was up, everyone from the Railway fraternity, including the Railway minister Suresh Prabhu congratulated me.” Interestingly, Latha is the first railway employee to win the award.
53-year-old Latha has been an employee of the Indian Railways for the last 33 years and has undertaken many cleanliness programmes through her charitable trust, Aram Foundation (she has been with the foundation for over four years and is the managing trustee of the same). “As the managing trustee of the foundation and an employee of the Railways, we have been cleaning the Coimbatore Railway station periodically. We have been getting many volunteers from colleges and we are planning to devise a mechanism, through which the cleaning process can be done in a systematic manner. We have also been painting the walls of all stations across Salem division.”
In the meantime, Latha’s trust also provides many counselling services for children in corporation schools. “These children do not get personal attention and that is what we are trying to focusing upon. We have been conducting self-defense training, cleanliness & traffic awareness programmes, pre-marital counselling and smart class guidance to these children. This apart, we have been providing counselling to prisoners as well, where the primary focus is upon women and children. We are planning to take these programmes to Tiruppur and Erore as well in a phased manner.”
Though Latha says that she finds it tough to manage her time between social service, Railways and her family, she has absolutely no qualms about it. “There are two things I strongly believe in- to give back to the society as much as possible & never come up with an excuse when it comes to social service. I have always believed that women are extremely crucial to the well-being of the society and for a society to flourish, women have to be empowered. I grew up in a family of teachers and I have seen my parents facing many a hardship to transform their students into good individuals. I intend to follow the same. I am also extremely grateful to my trust and every volunteer who have provided yeoman service to the women and children.”
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News Home> Coimbatore / by P. Sangeetha, TNN / January 17th, 2016