A leader and a voice for many women Tarkeshwor Municipality-3 Jitpurphedi Dandagaun
Sharmila Adhikari, a mother of two children, and a busy housewife, embodies a perfect example of perseverance and grit of a human being. She was born and raised in the bustling city of Kathmandu, after marriage, she came and lived with her husband here in Dandagaun, Jitpurphedi.
In the beginning years of her marriage, she faced many challenges; poor health due to operation, adjustment problem in village and mount of different roles and expectations that came with her marriage. Looking back, she feels relief and happy that those phases are over and that she handled them well. Most of the women in her community including her own a decent size of land, a major source of income for each household, in which they work tirelessly day in and day out. One difference that sets her apart from other women is that she absolutely loves farming. Her passion for agriculture goes way back to her school days when she decided to pursue agriculture as her major.
Nine years after marriage, she got her first major breakthrough when VIN proposed several entrepreneurial trainings including mushroom farming in her community. She approached VIN and requested herself for mushroom farming training for her and for other 23 women of her community. Today, 1 year after training and with the interest free loan from VIN, she has been successfully farming and selling mushroom and also earning extra revenue for her family. Mushroom farming business has helped her in daily nuances such as buying school lunch for her two boys to contemplating on being an entrepreneur in the future. It’s remarkable to witness how an opportunity such as training can bring a difference in the lives of many women who have dreams but no devices to make them come true.
She has already paid half of the loan to VIN and planning to expand her mushroom business by adding more mushroom bowls in the future. The confidence she got from her newly found success radiated on her face as she was reminiscing about her early struggling days. She feels immense pride for being self-independent in small ways and also for being able to help her husband financially in the household. She formed a group of 23 women by walking around the community and knocking on each door with the hope to empower women through trainings for income generation. Right now, she is planning to request VIN for several other entrepreneurial trainings for women with low income in her group.
She is not only a leader but also a visionary who tapped the opportunity provided by VIN at the right time and utilized it not only to her benefit but also to the benefit of all the women in her group. And she is very thankful to VIN for bringing cost free-training, loan free interest to them and also for trusting their abilities to succeed.
Submitted by: Punam Gurung, local volunteer
Submitted on: 11/1/2019
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