For The World To Believe In A Special Child, The Parents Need To Do It First

Aditi Verma was born with Down's syndrome, but her parents believed in her and today she is an award winning entrepreneur in Navi Mumbai.

Aditi Verma was born with Down’s syndrome, but her parents believed in her and today she is an award winning entrepreneur in Navi Mumbai.

It is natural for a couple to be heartbroken, when they are told that the child born to them suffers from a disability. They face the world’s judgment, stigma, pity, and sympathy while bringing up the child. It is easier to get disheartened and tough to keep up the morale.

Amit and Reena Verma of Kharghar, Navi Mumbai are model parents. Their daughter Aditi was born with Down’s syndrome twenty-three years ago. She also had a hole in her heart. This did not deter the parents. In fact they have gone a step ahead than average parents in making their daughter self reliant.

They never treated Aditi differently from her brother and encouraged her to pursue her dreams. Whether it was medical treatment, special education, personal involvement or financial investment, the Vermas have not spared anything to support their daughter.

Aditi has attended special schools wherever her parents stayed. Beginning with Jaipur where the family stayed till 2001, to another one in Pune till 2005 and finally to Swami Brahmanand Pratishthan, Belapur. This school encouraged her a lot, where she won the ‘Best Student Award’ in 2010 for her overall performance.

Aditi was very strong at Mathematics. She started helping her father with data entry in his logistics business. She was very competent and handled her work efficiently.

At home her heart lay in trying new recipes. She watched cookery shows, YouTube videos to make new dishes. Her family decided to nurture her talent. They invested money to buy her a shop where she could run her own eatery cum catering business. It all began with the new year’s morning in 2016. They began ‘Aditi’s Corner’ in Bhoomi Mall, CBD Belapur.

To an onlooker, ‘Aditi’s Corner’ might look like any other normal eatery. But it is as special as the owner and her parents. It runs on a lot of faith and dedication. Aditi herself meticulously takes down lunch orders, greets every customer with an endearing smile. She also supervises the cooking and keeps accounts.

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Aditi’s corner started as a small snack corner, serving beverages with sandwiches, Maggi and egg preparations. Now it also serves and delivers homemade lunch.

Her customers are hooked to her preparations; they get affordable, quality food with variety each day. A specialty of this snack corner are chocolates and cupcakes, which are prepared by Aditi herself. Once someone starts her lunch service, they do not go. Her delectable rajma chawal traps them forever. Above all they love Aditi’s dynamism and also her respectful and humble demeanor.

Not only her parents and customers, now social forums are also recognizing the grit of this girl. Newspapers have published articles on this path breaking beginning.

Aditi represented Maharashtra as an entrepreneur in the Self Advocates Forum of India (SAFI) in Bengaluru on December 9, 2016. She even gave a lecture on her initiative and her desire to expand it. She has been nominated as the State representative for SAFI.

She appeared on a video ‘Entrepreneur beats disability’ part of woman boss series by The Better Indian and History channel.

Congratulations Amit and Reena Verma with your belief you gave us a hero in daily life. She would become the guiding light to many.

Published here earlier.

Image source: YouTube

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About the Author

Rakhi Jain

Doctorate on teenage pregnancy, published research papers with Medical journals. Articles for Reader's Digest and newspaper. Blogger at parenting and relationship websites. After having taught at school and college levels, currently employed as Independent read more...

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