Priyanka Barkana, who hails from Jodhpur, completed her B.Sc. in Community Sciences from Maharaja Sayahirao University in Baroda. Hereafter, she got married and moved to Jaipur, where she was running a family-owned hospitality business for several years. However, as she started nearing her 30s, Priyanka found her soul-calling and decided to shift her career focus entirely to the education sector — where previously she has had 5+ years of experience as a career counsellor and IB educator. And this is how Priyanka’s enterprise White Elephant Jaipur Private Limited came to being in 2017.
The enterprise’s activities are centered on enabling all-round education and development (including and beyond the scope of school education), thereby allowing an individual to live life ‘mammoth’ size and style — hence resembling a ‘white elephant’s’ traits. On the other hand, Priyanka also wanted to give a tribute to the ‘Pink City’ which she calls home, and thus she incorporated ‘Jaipur’ in the her enterprise’s name.
“When I became a mother, I started spending a lot of time in teaching my son Harshodaya. Thereby, I started developing a keen interest in how my son is absorbing education and allied activities and how those are shaping up his personality. White Elephant Jaipur was born out of the immense passion and interest for enabling wholistic education and development to kids. I didn’t want to be a conventional teacher, but wanted to improvise and offer something unique which will leave an impact and sustainable transformation amongst children. With that in mind, initially, we started with providing services to kids in the age group of 6 to 10 years, but over time, White Elephant expanded further to youngsters aged below 16. Today, White Elephant Jaipur stands out as possibly the only enterprise in the state (Rajasthan) and country that is guiding the children and youth from their education to employment stages,” informs Priyanka Barkana, Founder, White Elephant Jaipur.
Speaking about her association with Her & Now, Priyanka Barkana says, “The Her & Now programme came to my life as a blessing and pillar of strength, and acted as a guiding light in my entrepreneurial journey. It helped me instill in myself the right mindset as an entrepreneur and enhanced my business knowledge in a plethora of ways. The best part was getting mentored by industry experts who gave us valuable insights and solutions and guided us in the right direction. Also, the assessments and assignments given to us during the programme helped me to take strategic steps to grow my enterprise optimally. Last but not the least, the programme also enabled me to build and nurture great connections with fellow women entrepreneurs from my state – which was like an icing on the cake, as far as the Her & Now experience is concerned.”
White Elephant Jaipur offers a wide range of e-learning services where they mostly focus upon providing skill- based education/vocational training and enhancing soft skills of students via one-to-one or group-based online knowledge sessions, workshops and courses. They have developed and rolled out multiple flagship programmes so far on personality development, public speaking, creative writing and communication, dining and public etiquettes, etc. by partnering with a number of reputed mentors and educators from across India. Additionally, they are providing online academic assistance sessions for students, as well as professional career counselling support to high school students so that they can choose their career wisely and also helping them with filling up applications for various colleges and universities.