Ujala Choudhary, Executive Director, Navjyoti India Foundation.
In this episode of The Brand Called You, Ashutosh Garg engages in an insightful conversation with the social-sector visionary, Ujala Choudhary, Executive Director, Navjyoti India Foundation.
Podcast
Overview
“Once you’re really working in the community, you can’t work in isolation.”- Ujala Choudhary
In this episode of The Brand Called You, Ashutosh Garg engages in an insightful conversation with the social-sector visionary, Ujala Choudhary, Executive Director, Navjyoti India Foundation.
Ujala talks about her early career in the corporate world and her experience as a Banker in the City Bank. She talks about the monumental shift in her career from corporate to the social sector. She talks about how the social sector varies from the corporate world, either it be the lack of recognition or the absence of comforts that come with the corporate lifestyle.
Ujala then tells us about her all-embracing foundation, Navjyoti India. Navjyoti India aims to prevent crime in the villages of North India with an inclusive approach. They are continuously working on the ground level with hundreds of villages, aiming to find out the root causes of problems such as crime and preventing it through certain programmes. Ujala tells us that they wish to facilitate the people with the opportunities so that they don’t tend towards criminal activities and become self reliable.
Ujala discusses how she manages to raise funds for the organisation. Before concluding, she shares her wisdom on how one should set professional and personal goals and how to go about choosing what to do in one’s life.
#knowledge #experience #wisdom
Profile
Currently the Executive Director of the organization, Ms Ujala Bedi Chaudhary is also steering the Fund raising team in Navjyoti India Foundation. An ISO certified auditor, she has been the project head of the Rural Development Program in Gurgaon in her initial years of her association with the organization. Her association with Navjyoti India Foundation goes back many years, but it was in September 2008 when she took to her calling of social work and put up her papers at Citi Group where she had served for 10 years as a Sr.Manager, leaving behind the high pay package and a promising world. Having experienced some drastic events in her life, she decided to leave the comfortable environment of the corporate world in her quest to attain true satisfaction through social work. She worked on voluntary basis with Navjyoti India Foundation imparting training to rural staff before she was formally appointed as Head – Rural Development Program in 2008.
Having experienced a sweeping transformation from an agile corporate life to a very challenging and dynamic non-profit world, her life’s trajectory has indeed provided her a continued view of evolution of her repertoire of skills that have been developed through a gradual process in the two curiously parallel sectors. Her multifaceted background brings in the much needed structured approach and has enabled Navjyoti to function better.
She has an expertise in development and implementation of projects in Citi group. Her key skills include project management and monitoring audits, trainings, research and evaluation (teams of up to 100 people). She has handled operations in Citi group and met objectives ,everytime raising the bar of self excellence. Her performance was recognized by her seniors and appreciated at various platforms. She had won the prestigious star award in Citi group for four consecutive years since date of award inception.
A post graduate in English (Honors), she possesses excellent communication skills, able to articulate technical jargon to a non technical audience and lead through thinking creatively and encouraging others to continuously improve. Her ability to challenge the status quo and traditional thinking coupled with technical knowledge from NIIT (3 years course) brought the much required quality change in the organization. That she is experienced in forging strong client relationships and has excellent networking skills is evident in the strong relationships with not only corporate but also government departments, educational institutes and individuals that she has managed to built so far. She also has her Masters in Social Work.
Since her joining, she has successfully generated funds from agencies and corporates ,possessing a track record in helping to optimize the operational processes while maximizing outcomes of the organization requiring high degree of communication, flair and ability to negotiate and meet deadlines. Receiver of the coveted Pride of India Awards, her strong vision and an unquenchable thirst to achieve successful outcomes has given the much needed impetus to the rural project under her supervision.
Under her leadership as Head , Rural project, a total of 45 new Self Help Groups were formed and 600 new women beneficiaries were linked with ‘Jagrit Nari Federation’. She helped in setting up a stitching and tailoring unit in the village for the President of Jagrit Nari Federation so that the women can become self reliant. She formally got the Federation registered under Societies Registration Act. The Federation further acted as pressure group and liquor shop was shifted to an isolated place from their village. She helped in facilitating the Federation wherein the Panchayat passed the resolution to construct the road outside the school in Khedla village. She worked immensely to provide income generation opportunities to women and also linked them to export houses.
She further strengthened association with Hartford University who helped in installation of solar pumps and twelve thousand litres of storage tanks in girls primary school in village Abheypur. Over and above 180 girls of the school, approx. 50 households (350 people) from the potter’s community benefitted from the project. Attendance of the girls in the school improved who would otherwise go back to their households during lunch break due to non availability of water. The environment project further strengthened under her leadership and gabion structures were constructed in partnership with SAP Labs. A herbal and medicinal unit was also developed in the project area.
Ms Ujala Bedi Chaudhary has successfully implemented trainings and workshops with the support of District Rural Development Agency. Additionally, she tied up with Law University and professors to implement a project on rural community trainings and ensure the community becomes self reliant in addressing their needs and concerns.
A talented fundraising expert, she has spearheaded the fund raising team of Navjyoti India Foundation for many years now and has managed to devise innovative strategies by assimilating feedbacks and coordinating resources to increase the FR penetration. She is also a cherished member of the POSH committees of RJ Corp and Indo Asia Leisure Services Limited & on the advisory Board of TKWS Institute of Banking & Finance.
Ms Ujala Bedi Chaudhary’s innate urge of seeking a challenging and varied role that enables her to capitalize on her professional experience with opportunity for personal and professional growth is what has served as a paragon of leadership.
