PREETI MONGA
Started out as an Aerobic instructor, went onto teaching English, typing and computers to visually impaired children along with counseling their distressed parents, then selling pickles freelance, Preeti didn’t have it easy owing to the fact that she was visually impaired and lacked formal qualifications. Not a person to be defeated by harshness of life though, she won the job of marketing and sales manager at the pickle company in spite of their initial hesitation, along with working as freelance journalist and a health and fitness consultant. Always the one who spoke from the heart, she offered emotional and trauma counseling services and delivered talks and lectures, which to date have the effect of moving audience to tears as well as charging them up to be bold and stand for themselves.
Raising awareness about the capability of people with disabilities at various forums led to her career as a corporate trainer. She freelanced as a personality and personal development coach for girls and women with visual impairment; along with providing them with all round mainstreaming skill trainings. She also worked as Public Relations and Fund Raising Head with an organization and then worked with Dr. Shroff’s Charity Eye Hospital as PR Head and Trauma Counselor, taking care of their patient satisfaction, patient care, soft skill trainings as well as marketing for ten years. While continuing all her freelance work, she registered her own NGO called Silver Linings Trust. She wrote a number of books, including her autobiography ‘The Other Senses’. Now running her own recruitment, training, travel & CSR advisory business and her NGO since 2010, in addition to offering consultation to overseas companies for establishing their operations in India by providing them with Admin, HR, PR, Marketing, Accounting and Sales support, Preeti Monga is a woman in whose lexicon the word impossible doesn’t exist.
Dealing with challenges all along and crushing them with her unwavering grit (who could think of training or having a blind Aerobics instructor??), Preeti developed her expertise in figuring out ways, no matter what – be it managing to commute to and from classes with no mobility skills or running her fitness center successfully without any money at all or taking care of two small children or keeping afloat in a bad marriage or walking out of it eventually. (She is married again and happily now!)
All this while keeping her sense of humor intact, even better, with each passing day! If you don’t believe us, you must listen to her talk. That you must anyways, as she is one of those gifted motivational speakers whose words weave magic and have the knack of seeping deep into your soul. What keeps her going: The burning desire to live with dignity along with helping others to do the same!
Preeti Monga is the Founder Director of Silver Linings Synergies and the Silver Linings Trust, an organization which offers a host of services to corporations and people at large. Her list of awards and achievements runs into a couple of pages. She has received the ‘Red and White Bravery’ award, the ‘Rajeev Gandhi Manav Seva’ award and the IIPM ‘Indomitable Spirit of Survival’ award, ‘National Award for the Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities – 2013’ under the category ‘Best Employees/Self Employed with Disabilities’ from the President of India, to name a few.
