In her second year, Miss Redit's mother Mavis (Maddock) decided she should leave school and start work. Mrs Redit was friends with a woman who owned a kindergarten nearby and made arrangements for her to be a teacher's assistant at a Castlecliff Kindergarten.
Miss Redit said she was not happy there and had no peace.
She worked for a year and went to night school to learn typing. She also taught in three Sunday schools, was a Girls' Rally leader and joined the Red Cross and completed a one-year training period.
But she was determined to further her studies and asked the college principal if she could return to school.
When she finished secondary school, Miss Redit applied for and was accepted for Meyers Park Kindergarten Training College in downtown Auckland.
Miss Redit worked as a nurse-aid at a tuberculosis sanatorium from 7am-4pm each day to save money for her hostel fees and on Saturdays she cleaned homes for extra pocket money.
She returned to Wanganui when she graduated as a kindergarten teacher and was appointed assistant director of Central Kindergarten for one year, and then transferred to Durie Hill Kindergarten as director for a year.
In February 1964, Miss Redit sailed to India.
It was through her ministry that she later opened the Handicraft Centre in the 1970s in Chennai, southeast India, and started a two-year tailoring and embroidery course for girls. For those girls who come from villages located several hours away, they stay in a hostel started for them.
In 1996, she opened a home for orphans and, up until 2011, there were 200 children from age 1 to 21 living there.
She says those children are from the slums and some of the children need special care.
"Some children come to me with just one plastic bag and an old dress and worn-out underwear in it. These are their only possessions and it is terribly moving to see their terrible poverty."
