Neha Jain

Neha Jain

This is who I am in the world: 

My name is Neha and I was born in Singapore and I live in Sydney currently. I am an Edutainer, A Coach and a Writer who is also a Mother, a daughter and a friend. I’ve spent the last 15 years educating and nurturing young minds to reaching their full potential and being confident. In the last three years I’ve dedicated my time and will continue to dedicate my time to raising my child to be self-assured whilst celebrating and owning her diversity. 

This is the story I want rewritten for women:

Growing up in Singapore, I always felt somewhat displaced, not really knowing where I fit in. The displacement continued when I moved to Australia, and more so, because there weren’t examples of women who looked like me doing the things that I was doing or leading. It took learning about myself, studying coaching, just growing into my skin to realise that I didn’t need to fit in any kind of mould and that I could shine as who I was. 

When I became a mother, I realised that I wanted my daughter to be self-confident, to own and be accepting of her voice and her diversity and to shine and whilst this is an ongoing process, I started this as soon as she was born because early childhood is the most critical period of our lives and lays the foundation for adulthood. Firstly, I am modelling being a diverse woman confident in my skin so that she can see this and do the same. Secondly she is surrounded by a family of women who are comfortable in who they are, leading in different industries. 

Thirdly, she also needed to see girls and women that looked like her through books/mainstream media etc. However this isn’t really prevalent in Australia so I started a FB playgroup for Subcontinent Families so that she could listen to stories, learn songs from her culture and also see other children and families who looked like hers #becauseyoucan’tbewhatyoucan’tsee and start owning and being comfortable with her diversity. 

I want this to be the norm for diverse girls living in Australia, heck in the world. I want them to be self-confident, own their diversity and shine in the world in whichever way they are going to. 

This is the story that I next want to write for myself:

I want to embolden Subcontinent girls by showing them Subcontinent girls and women such as myself who are diverse and are leaders in varying fields in Australia and in the world so that they can see that there is nothing that they can’t do. I also want to empower parents of Subcontinent girls so that they can raise girls who are self-confident and own their power.