These are women who dared to dream in spite of all odds being stacked up against them. Through great determination and grit, these young women are forging their own aviation career paths and proving again and again that girls can fly…and how!
These are the girls and women of India who are the inspiration behind the WE! Udaan Scholarship.
“Dedication and hard work don’t go to waste”
No story of grit, determination and empowerment inspires as does the story of Syeda Salva Fatima, the daughter of a bakery worker from an impoverished neighbourhood of Sultan Shahi in the old city of Hyderabad. She is today one of India’s first four hijab wearing muslim women to hold a Commercial Pilot Licence (CPL).
Salva’s story of `I want to be a pilot’ changed into reality despite many odds to attain her life’s ambition. She found a mentor in Zahid Ali Khan, Editor of Siasat, who along with other philanthropists, helped her enroll at the Andhra Pradesh Aviation Academy in 2007. Five years later, Fatima completed her training at the Aviation Academy, logging 200 hours of flying in the Cessna 152 aircraft and 123 hours of solo flight.
Moved by her story of persistence, the Telangana government announced financial assistance of Rs 36 lakh for Salva’s multi-engine training and type-rating. Dogged by odds repeatedly, she completed her simulator training in New Zealand and type-rating on Airbus at the Gulf Aviation Academy in Bahrain and went on to get her Commercial Pilot Licence (CPL) in 2013.
“Have a clear goal and positive thinking. Dedication and hard work don’t go to waste,” is Salva’s message to girls with dreams like her. Hence making her the ideal Ambassador of the WE! Udaan Scholarship which aims to support deserving Indian girls across 110 cities and towns with an opportunity to enroll in aviation training.
“We are happy to get this opportunity to serve the country,”
Meet three women who chose to fight small mind-sets so that they could fight for the country. Women who have been dubbed the “women top guns of India”!
Inspired by her brother who is in the army, Avani Chaturvedi from Satna district in Madhya Pradesh comes from a family of army officers. She always wanted to fly and was inspired by her brother who is in the Army. She first tasted flight when she joined the flying club of her college. And now, flying officer Avani Chaturvedi has become the first Indian woman pilot to complete a solo flight in a MiG–
Bhawana Kanth is from Darbhanga in Bihar. Her father is an officer in the Indian Oil Corporation. Her childhood dream was to fly planes. Her goal was to become a fighter pilot and serve the nation.
Mohana Singh from Jhunjhunu district of Rajasthan is proudly continuing her family’s tradition of serving the nation. She has as her inspiration, her grandfather, a flight gunner in the Aviation Research Centre and her father, a warrant officer in the IAF.
Three women, with clear goals and set ambitions that break all norms. These women, who are all in their mid-twenties, have not only shattered the gender barrier but also become pathbreakers as the first women to pilot fighter planes in India. Clearly the sky is the limit where these three are concerned.
Close on the heels of this achievement the IAF has selected the next batch of three women trainee pilots for the fighter stream. At WE!, we say nothing empowers other women like the success of women before them!
Image Courtesy: Anny_divya's Instagram profile
“Since my childhood I wanted to be a pilot”
For one with a difficult journey Captain Anny Divya has come a long way. She has not only realised a childhood dream but also managed a series of first along the way including being the youngest woman commander to fly the Boeing 777.
“Since my childhood I wanted to be a pilot”, she says. It was a childhood dream that was tough to fulfil. She was ridiculed by other children and faced opposition from her family and relatives. However, encouraged by her parents, Anny got into Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Uran Akademi (IGRUA), the flying school in Uttar Pradesh after her 12th grade, when she was 17 years old.
The challenges were many: her lack of English-speaking skills, financial challenges and of course the fact that she came from a small town. At some point she wanted to give it all up, but persistence and hard work bore fruit.
She won a scholarship, completed her training when she was 19 and landed herself a job with Air India. After that, it seemed there was no looking back. She went to Spain for her training, which was her first time abroad! When she got back she got the opportunity to fly the Boeing 737.
At 21, after further training in London she started flying a Boeing 777 and became the world’s youngest woman to commander it.
Her journey into the skies and around the world has been one of learning and pride. Her advice to other women: “Your parents are your biggest support, so trust them to keep you grounded. And last but not the least, there’s no substitute for hard work.”
“Don’t let them kill your dreams”
If there’s a name that goes with the word pathbreaking, it’s Saarah Hameed Ahmed, who is India’s first female Muslim pilot. “I just love the look on the people’s faces when they discover I am Muslim”, she says gleefully.
Clearly breaking stereotypes, Saarah did come up against opposition from her family as well as the community, when she shared her dream of flying. She was fortunate in having a relative who was a pilot in the US who convinced her father to encourage her to fulfil her dreams. And with her parents’ support, that’s exactly what Saarah did.
When she was just 18, she enrolled in a flying school in the US – just the fact that she got her visa without any trouble was taken as a ‘message from God’ by her deeply religious father.
Since then this Bangalore girl has come a long way. She is a role model for other Muslim girls who have similar aspirations. She remembers with pride a time at a wedding when a group of Muslim girls surrounded her to know more about how to become a pilot.
If there is one message that this courageous young pilot wants to give young girls, it’s this, “Don’t fret over what the community thinks of you. And don’t let them kill your dreams.”