Atish Teetan : Overcoming poverty with education

There is a famous saying: “Where there is a will, there is a way.” This one line summarizes the life of Atish Teetan. Born in a poor family, Atish used education as a weapon to mould his future. Atish makes us discover his amazing journey.                

Atish Teetan, 27 years old from Flacq, is a young man who has managed to fight poverty thanks to education and family support.  Currently, he is responsible for the Management of Human Resources for a large chain of supermarkets in Mauritius employing over 275 persons. Born in a poverty-stricken family who could barely afford two meals a day, Atish knew it was hard to be able to afford a good education and achieve something in life. But this did not prevent him from writing his own fate.

“My parents worked for more than 12 hours every day to manage to educate their children. Today, everything that I have achieved is thanks to the hard work and faith of my parents. After my secondary education, I was sponsored by the State and did my tertiary education at the University of Mauritius and joined an International Company as HR Assistant before being given the full responsibility of the department a year later.”

In 2014, he joined a large conglomerate in Mauritius and he has also worked as consultant for small businesses and startups whereby he mainly helped entrepreneurs in the good running of their ventures.  “I firmly believe that Entrepreneurship is the way forward and my next goal in life is to become an entrepreneur, hence my participation in the Mandela Washington Fellowship in 2017 to gain valuable experience and business acumen.”

Involvement in community

During his free time, he is actively involved in organizing social activities for the underprivileged and disabled children through the CSR Committee of the company he is working for, as well as for other Non-Governmental Organizations in his locality.

“I am also a fitness addict and football fanatic and I provide personal training services to a few persons, helping them to become fit and healthy.” Atish was selected to be part of the Mandela Washington Fellowship 2017 and he had the opportunity to visit the biggest hypermarket in the world, namely Wal-Mart, other business startups, social entrepreneurship ventures and also participate in seminars on leadership and business plan competitions.

“I met several businessmen, investors, professors and scientists who helped to change our perception of the business world as well as how we view life. We also engaged in various community outreach events.  For example, in collaboration with a famous NGO named Habitat for Humanity, we built a house and also helped in raising funds for the poor during our stay in the US.  We also met several teenagers and other citizens in the US and helped to guide them in their career choices and also briefed them about Africa.  Usually, most people think that Africa is the continent where you have Aids, Ebola, extreme violence, poverty and corruption, but we managed to inform them that Africa is also about innovation, abundant natural resources, youth empowerment, change and diversity.  Africa is the future.” 

On returning to his home country, he carried on with the good and benevolent work for helping humanity. “Back in Mauritius, I am also involved in helping my community with my most recent project, being working with “Lizie dans la main”, an NGO dedicated to helping children and adults having visual impairments.”

Future endeavour

Once among his own people again, the young man went into reflection mode, asking himself what he wants to achieve and how he can contribute more to his community. “Along with the other Mauritian fellows, we will be working on projects and proposals that could positively have an impact on poverty, education and the disabled. I also have some personal business projects in mind which I want to pursue. Thanks to networking with fellows from Africa, this helped me understand Mainland Africa and the huge potential for growth that it has,” he avers.