Meera Bai, a farmer with no formal education, lives in Keshavpura village of Pratapgrah district, Rajasthan. She is often concerned about her future because her income from farming and animal husbandry is not adequate for her household expenses and her children’s education. However, her participation in the SHGs formed by Srijan has given her the confidence to interact with other community members. She recalls that earlier, she didn’t even know how to hold a pen. After being part of the group, the other members taught her to write her name which made her feel empowered. She always dreamt of having her own small enterprise but due to her own fears and lack of entrepreneurial skills, she was reluctant to take up any business activity. 

Meera undertook the training from FWWB in 2016 and learned about the success stories of different entrepreneurs during the business management skill training. She was able to relate herself to the stories of women entrepreneurs in other states, and the struggles and challenges they faced to become an entrepreneur.

Archana Sole who lives in Chakan village of Pune district in Maharashtra, has been associated with Chaitanya, Pune for the past 11 years and is a member of Saraswati Mahila Sangh (Self Help Group – SHG). She is also a Padhadhikari (official) of the Federation promoted by Chaitanya. She got married in the year 2003 and was living a happy married life in a joint family of 13 members. In a sad turn of events, she lost her husband in the year 2011 and her widowhood made her a pariah in the conservative community she was married into.

With perseverance and courage, Archana turned her fate around and carved a new identity for herself as a tailoring master in her village and set-up a small scale tailoring business.
She bought two sewing machines worth Rs. 2, 500 and Rs. 5, 000 each by taking a loan from bachat gath (savings group) and repaid the loan within one year. Later, her association with the Mahila Sangh encouraged her to pursue her undergraduate degree that was left incomplete post her marriage; she graduated in the year 2016.

During the initial phase of her business, she charged a meager amount of INR 500 for imparting the training to other village women who wanted to learn tailoring. Steadily, she built a strong customer base in her locality and due to her superior quality of work, she increased her garment stitching charges to Rs. 700. Archana’s tailoring skills and marketing strategies improved her business, resulting in a monthly income of INR 15,000. Whenever she receives a bigger order, especially during the wedding season, she outsources part of the work to the community members. This planned strategy helps her to fulfill her business commitments on time as well as increase her income to Rs. 25,000 – Rs. 30,000 per month.

56 year-old Chingangbam Bilashini Devi is a resident of Wangkhei village in Manipur, which is known for hand- woven clothes. Bilashini Devi got married in the year 1980 and just after five years of her marriage, her husband met with an accident. Since then, Bilashini Devi became the sole earner of her family.

Initially, she used to weave the clothes by herself. Since she had never got any formal training in weaving, she couldn’t produce high quality garments, and charged lower rates for her work. This income was not sufficient for her survival so she then worked as a saleswoman at someone else’s shop. She started earning a monthly income of Rs. 4, 000 but was unable to save anything for her future plans, which revolved around giving a better education to her children.

Bilashini heard about Chanura Microfin Manipur (CMM) from one of her friends who had also been a member of the organization since many years and was living a prosperous life. She became member of Wangkhei Wangkheimayum Leirak Join Liability Group (JLG). She has been associated with CMM for 8 years now. 

Life is all about believing that good things will come your way. It is about keeping up the fighting spirit and facing all odds valiantly. Dwarka Bai, a Manihari (a community that traditionally sells bangles and other jewellery items), is one such fighter hailing from Rajasthan.

Dwarka Bai is an imitation jewellery manufacturer and seller. She has primary level education and is in this business for the last 25 years. She lives in a small village called Ajetapurana, in Bundi district, Rajasthan. She is the only breadwinner of the family.

After losing hope from her husband to earn a living for the family, she took charge of her house and thought of starting to work on her own. For this, she took a loan from the Self Help Group formed by SRIJAN and bought raw materials from Delhi. Dwarka Bai took initiative started selling the jewellery in the local village. Gradually she learned from her experiences and came to know about different demands from the customers about a variety of things required in the household. She observed that people had to go to a different village to buy all those things. Hence, grabbing the opportunity, she bought the items which are frequently in demand and established herself in the manihari business. She maintains the business accounts on her own but faced problems with the availability of time to maintain it regularly. She shared that, “Doing business is a challenge for a woman.” She had also contributed a big amount of money in building their family house and without family’s support; it was very difficult to proceed further.

While talking about the advantage of becoming entrepreneur she says “Because of my business, I don’t have to spread hands in front of others for money.” Even though her income was low, she managed to feed her family. Although she earned a good income, her profit was utilized for the household expenses and she was unable to save money.

This is a woman who donated some of her last bits of land for a village anganwadi school; who wants her son to complete MBBS and practice in the village; who encourages local women to learn a new form of vocational training by giving them stipends from her own money; thinks of them as her family; and worries night and day about how to keep the 700 BPL (Below Poverty Line) women in her village gainfully occupied. Rarely does one come across this kind of combination of energy, philanthropy, concern, intelligence, and sheer grit. She separated from her husband and has now been living on her own for 17 years. “My son and all these women are my family.”

Back in the mid 90s, she and other women from the village learnt to weave handloom sarees under a Block Development scheme. But she found that there was no market for handloom; the arena was saturated. The women felt discouraged. So Wazifa decided to do something different. She had heard of women in nearby areas managing to earn upto Rs 700-1,000 a week with zari work. In 1998, she organised zari training for the women on her own. They were skeptical, so she mortgaged some jewellery to give them a stipend of Rs 300 from her own pocket. 20 of them learnt, beginning a process that has flourished into a large workshop, and given employment to several women in Chatra.

Now Wazifa regularly goes to get orders and pick up samples from Barabazaar in Kolkata. The women embroider or add embellishments to sherwanis, kurtas, salwars, saris etc. and now, even to westernized gowns. Many work from their home, and some come to work in Wazifa’s workshop. The products they make may sell for up to Rs 20,000 in the market. In 2005, Wazifa and her co-workers showed their zari saris and salwar kurtas in the State Trade Fair on the invitation of the DRDC (District Rural Development Cell). 

45 year-old Wangkheimayum Indira Devi lives in Ghari village which is located in Imphal West district in Manipur. She is a member of Ghari Awang Leikai Joint Liability Group (JLG) and is associated with Chanura Microfin Manipur (CMM) since 2010.

Indira Devi had started making jewellery when she was about 13 years old. While working as a trainee under the guidance of her aunt for almost three years, she became a fine jewellery designer. Indira Devi enjoys the process of attaching the tiny metal pieces to stones and giving them the shape of a beautiful necklace.

Her fondness for the work is so much that even after getting married at the age of 25, she continued the jewellery making work and opened a small shop in the front courtyard of her house. Every month she buys the raw material worth Rs. 5, 000 from the nearby wholesale market and earns Rs. 14, 000 every month. Initially, the availability of capital was the major constraint for her business and because of this, she used to buy a very small quantities of raw material. Her monthly earnings were a meager Rs. 4,000-5,000.

She was mostly dependent on moneylenders who used to charge interest at the rate of 5% monthly Such high interest rates eventually led to a financial crisis. At this juncture, she came to know about Chanura Microfin Manipur (CMM) and got associated with it in the year 2010. She took her first loan of Rs. 5, 000 and started buying the bulk amount of raw materials according to the market demand. This gradually led to an improvement in her financial condition. 

Though situated near the Imphal river, water is a serious problem with people having to buy water for drinking in the rainy season as the river is too muddy during those months. The rather sordid interior of her house is enlivened by baskets of freshly plucked green vegetables from the kitchen garden outside. The locality is Basikhong Torban Leikai in East Imphal where the main occupations are weaving and agriculture. Hemabati lives here with her husband who works as a plumber, while their only son is pursuing his studies at a boarding school near Manipur University. Hemabati grew up not far from here in Chajing in a fairly well to do family. Her parents worked on their land and had a tea stall as well. One of seven siblings, she studied only till Class 5 as girls were not encouraged to study much. Reminiscing about her childhood she says, “I did no work as a child. I did not even know how to cook. It is only after I got married that I learnt cooking.” Now, she is an extremely hard working person, with her day starting at 3 am! At 3.30 she and her husband start preparations at their small hotel located on the main road. They serve tea, poori and sabzi to people, both women and men, going for their morning walk or on their way to work. The hotel is a makeshift structure made of corrugated tin and supplemented with cardboard. Just before sunrise, her husband begins to make the dough while she cooks their morning meal at home. Then she moves to the hotel for cooking, and serving the customers. In 2001, Hemabati had an accident and had to undergo expensive treatment. Her husband had to sell his auto rickshaw to pay for it, and so he lost his job as a driver. They started the hotel at that time initially keeping it open in the morning and evening. However, nowadays they cannot keep it open in the evening as Hemabati is busy with a packed schedule of cooking, fetching water, evening worship, maintenance of the kitchen garden, and other household chores. Apart from running the hotel, she also works on her own paddy field, and tends to her piggery.

Langthabal, Imphal is one of the most strikingly beautiful places in the state of Manipur. The ancient relics make Langthabal an important tourist attraction in Imphal, Manipur. 80% of the population in this region is engaged in aluminium molding work. Thoibi Devi who is 47 years old, used to work in one of such shops and learned the basic skills related to aluminium i.e. cutting, segregation, pressing etc. before carving it into various products. There are four members in her family. Her husband used to work as a school van driver..

Instead of working as wage laborers, Thoibi Devi and her husband wanted to do some kind of business. They wanted to do such business which would be complementary to the aluminium molding sector and where there would be few market players so that they would be earning more. She says, “For the people like us, making an investment in a business is a huge thing. We must have that futuristic vision so that our money does not go in vain. It’s better to invest where you see the opportunity and can make advantage as a first mover because opportunity doesn’t knock twice.”

Thoibi and her husband started aluminium scrap shop in the year 2005 by taking a loan of INR 7, 000 from a moneylender at the 8% p.m. interest rate. The business model in which they invested was very good and profitable, but the loan amount and its interest were so huge that they were not able to reap its benefits. She came to know about Chanura Microfin in the year 2010 by one of its ‘Karyakarta’. 

Surrounded by vividly coloured festive sarees and delicate zari, the image of kerosene lamps in close proximity to this inflammable material is a strong reminder of why DCBS started working with solar lamps in the first place. In 2011, DCBS founder Animesh Naiya noticed that three women had not paid their loan repayment instalments for a while. This was remarkable. Microfinance enterprises always point out how women are extremely good with their payments. In fact, Animesh says, “Banks take even 100 percent collateral, but for me, the only collateral is the promise of these women—and it is worth it. A woman’s promise is as good as gold.” So why were these women defaulting? He found that as they worked at embroidering sarees late at night amid frequent power failures, the kerosene lamps had accidentally fallen on the cloth and destroyed material worth a couple of thousands. The women could not pay back even with the best of intentions. Animesh saw the importance of the solar lamps, then being newly marketed.

Savera Lashkar, and her sister-in-law, Tanzila Lashkar, belong to a large family of zari workers, one among the many families in this area pursuing this occupation. The intervention of solar lamps in this combination of electricity failures and zari work has been powerful. Now, like the other women in these parts, the Lashkar women too use the solar lamp to work, cook, go out of the house, feed the cows… its sheer portability makes it an excellent multipurpose tool. Amongst the five brothers in the Lashkar family, they have five solar lamps. These came around three years back, along with the loans taken by Savera and Tanzila. Educated till Class 7 and married when she was 15, Savera, now 30 years old, came to a joint family that was already doing zari work. She joined the family labour force as a matter of course, as did her sister in-law Tanzila, 25 years old. 

Rinchula Ragui, a qualified graduate of Business Administration (B.A) and a true entrepreneur is engaged in multiple activities like weaving, running a grocery shop and poultry. She is a 37-year-old woman from Awotang block of Ukhrul district in Manipur. Her husband is a salaried employee.

Soon after marrying into a large family, Rinchula realized that her husband’s income was not adequate to fulfill the needs of her family. To overcome this situation, she utilised her skills of weaving which she had learned during her childhood and began weaving sweaters, shawls, and caps. She sold these in the neighborhood, from which she earned around Rs. 4,000 – 5,000 every month.

However, the income was not sufficient to sustain her family, so she ventured into the food processing business. From her savings, she bought fruits on a seasonal basis, which she further processed and packaged by herself. During other seasons, she sold these processed items by preparing candies, jams, and pickles at a premium price. The demand gradually started increasing and she further pursued to expand this business but faced challenges due to no availability of sufficient funds.

During this phase of her life, Rinchula got to know about Volunteers for Village Development (VVD) through her local community women. In 2015, she became a member of VVD and availed her first loan of Rs. 15,000 to further expand her business of food processing.

A solar lamp brightens up the cheerful colours of hundreds of sachets: Blue shampoos, purple chewing gums, red tomato ketchups, yellow detergents, white toothpaste, pink soaps… wafer packets, biscuits, chocolates, toffees, match boxes, cigarettes… but nothing as bright as the face of 34 year old Rama Sarkar, happy to be telling us her success story. Rama is an excellent example of why daughters should inherit land or property from their natal homes. She lives and works on her own land, given by her father, and her confidence is a pleasure to see.

She and her husband set up their own bidi making unit. At this point her husband started falling sick, and the doctors said that he should stop working with tobacco. The husband and wife were forced to wrap up their business at a loss of about Rs one and a half lakhs. But fate hadn’t reckoned with Rama’s determination. It occurred to her that since her house was right on the main road, any shop she opened there was bound to run. And so, back in 2014, she took a loan of Rs 10,000 from Gram Vikas, as well as another loan from a local microfinance company called KDS. The couple built a tin structure on the road, bought products, and began a grocery-cum-tea shop.

How many people come in a day? Rama pauses and smiles slyly. “Let me put it this way. My tea is well known in this area. And the curd I set is really famous; People come from quite some distances to get it. So every morning, between 7 and 9 there is a mela here. The same in the evening, from about 6 to 9.” The shop hours are 7 am-1 pm and 4 pm-9.30 pm. In the middle of this, Rama manages to send her children to school, cook meals, and set her famous doi (yoghurt).

Situated next to a small pond and a fancy gated apartment complex, Mayanglambam Jamini’s shop is not large, but has a significant presence. It is late afternoon when some customers drop by for a couple of paans. They then settle down on the narrow bench outside the shop for a leisurely chat. In this middle class locality called Sagolband Tera Sapam Leirak, most of the women are housewives, or are involved in weaving or running petty shops. She got married after completing her second year of BA. Her husband worked as a government employee on a contract basis for several years, never getting regularised, and then he lost that job as well. As they had more and more children, the financial pressure increased. He became a small-time contractor, and also started going to Moreh (on the Indo-Myanmar border) for business. He would bring back different kinds of products, and she would go door to door in her neighbourhood to sell them. It was tiring work.

Jamini became a member of Chanura initially for a loan to finance their trip to Moreh. Money wise, the business was not doing too badly, but as age caught up with her husband, the sheer travel was becoming too strenuous. Their children also began to protest against these trips, and worked on dissuading the parents. Earlier the couple travelled by bus, and ended up making more profit. Now they take the taxi that offers them speed and comfort, but also eats into their earnings.

Four years back, in her second loan cycle, Jamini decided to take a loan of Rs 10,000 to build the shop. Jamini keeps her shop open from 4 am to 10 pm, and on special occasions even later. She sells tea and pooris in the morning, and paan through the day. There’s a steady influx of customers as the evening progresses. As a lot of her clientele comprises the elderly, she hopes she can have proper seating in her shop in the future. She currently earns Rs 250 per day from the snacks, and Rs 350 from the sale of paan. Making it a paan shop was certainly a lucrative decision as hers is one of the few shops of this kind in the locality.

Leiyaphi Angkang is a 48 year-old woman from Chatric Khunou village in Ukhrul district. There are three members in her family. Her husband was engaged in poultry and pig farming. They earned a monthly income of Rs. 10,000 – 15,000 from these activities.

Their poultry business could not survive for a longer period due to increased competition and many suppliers. They had no other source of earning. During that phase, she made use of her weaving skills which she had learned from her mother. She began with selling woven clothes door-to-door for the survival of her family. From the meager savings earned from the weaving and poultry business, she opened a small shop in the year 2008 near her locality.

After two years, Leiyaphi wanted to further expand her shop but due to insufficient funds, she was unable to execute her plans. Through her neighbours, she came to know about Volunteers for Village Development (VVD) and the financial support they provide for the betterment of community members. She became a member of VVD and took her first loan of INR 10,000 in the year 2010 for expanding her business. Presently, her income from the shop is around INR 30,000.

The verandah of M. Lalini Devi’s house bears testimony to her lineage in exquisite hand embroidery. On the walls are photographs of her mother, a national award winner, and her sister, a state award winner like Lalini herself. There are also posters giving information about the Shaphee Lanphee tradition of embroidery that she specialises in, and a collection of colourful shawls, stoles and bags.

Lalini lives in Imphal East in Wangkhei Yonglan Leirak, famous for the weaving of the Rani Phee. Shedding light on her tradition, she says, “Different clans do different kinds of embroidery. I inherited it from my mother, and she from her mother. [According to a myth,] a God said that the shawl should be embellished with different animals like buffalo, elephant, and elements like spear, sun, and moon. In earlier times this shawl was given to a person as an honour by the King to acknowledge his/her achievement. Now it is a necessary part of the lives of the tribal people who use it during marriages, and for burial.” Lalini got married in 1991, but tragedy struck a couple of years later when she lost her husband and new born son. She tried living at her in-law’s place with her daughter for a few years, but could not cope as there was no one to look after the child when she had to travel for work. She has been living at her maternal home for the past 16 years. Lalini’s daughter, now 24, is pursuing a course in Homeopathy in Madhya Pradesh. At present the household comprises her niece and herself. Her life revolves around her niece who she is devoted to, and of course, her work. She loves doing embroidery and has taken it up whole heartedly. She travels to trade fairs in the northeast, and also to Delhi and Mumbai.