RISING FROM DUST: THE STORY OF AYESHA MEHTA || Success Story

In the quiet streets of Rajpipla, a small town nestled deep within Gujarat, a girl named Ayesha Mehta watched the world go by from the cracked verandah of her family’s rented home

Her father, a former textile mill worker, had lost his job in the city and returned home after an accident that left his right leg permanently injured. Her mother stitched clothes for neighbors, saving every rupee possible.

Ayesha, the eldest of three siblings, walked 6 kilometers daily to her school and back, her shoes torn but her spirit intact. She was average in grades, spoke in broken English, and got laughed at for dreaming big. Her dream

Chapter 2: The Spark The turning point came during a summer internship in 11th grade when she got to assist on a local housing project. Though most tasks involved carrying bricks and taking measurements,

she got to observe the engineers and architects at work. One day, an architect noticed Ayesha sketching ideas in her notebook and encouraged her to pursue formal training

That same evening, Ayesha cried while showing her sketches to her mother. “Do you think I’m dreaming too big?” she whispered. “No, beta,” her mother said. “But if you want to build houses for others, you must first build a life for yourself.”

Chapter 3: Climbing the Mountain The road to architecture school wasn’t easy. Ayesha studied under candlelight and visited cyber cafés to learn AutoCAD and SketchUp on outdated systems.

With no money for coaching, she relied on free YouTube tutorials and library books donated by a kind retired professor who saw her potential.

In 2017, she cleared the entrance exam for CEPT University in Ahmedabad. The day the results came, her father borrowed a friend’s phone to check the list. When they saw her name on it, they broke down in tears.

Chapter 4: Falling and Rising Again But city life was overwhelming. Ayesha struggled to blend in with wealthier peers, battled homesickness, and flunked her first design jury. She considered quitting. One evening, an old friend from her village called and said, “You represent us. If you give up, who’ll believe it’s possible?”

That night, something clicked. She stopped trying to fit in and focused on excelling. She sought mentorship, joined the sustainability club, and eventually won a design competition for eco-friendly housing funded by an international NGO.

Chapter 5: Homecoming Five years later, Ayesha returned to Rajpipla—not as the girl with tattered shoes, but as the architect of the town’s first low-cost, solar-powered housing colony. She didn’t just build homes; she built hope.

Her designs now feature in international journals, and she runs a foundation training underprivileged students in design thinking and sustainable building techniques. But if you ask her, her proudest moment wasn’t winning awards—it was handing the keys of a new house to her own parents.