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| Case Stories |
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Meeting the challenges of poverty with determination
Parbati was left destitute when her husband passed away. The extent of her hardships came into sharp relief when she even faced difficulties in ensuring an appropriate funeral of her husband. She had three children to feed and attend to. She was devastated and was on the verge of hopelessness. Things were however destined to change for her. She saw a light at the end of the tunnel, when Rithe Gaunda TLO was formed in her Tole near the Radio station in ward no. 15 of Pokhara Sub Metropolitan City. Amid such difficult times, she became a member of the TLO and took part in the meeting organized to develop Enterprise Development Plan. In the meeting, she saw an opportunity to start an enterprise selling vegetables and fruits, which she will buy from near by villages and Krishi Upaj Bazaar Kendra. She had difficulty in finding other Tole members to form an enterprise group, but TLO members after long deliberations decided to help her out as a gesture of empathy and accepted her enterprise plan and recommended her to RUPP.
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Parbati selling apples from Jomsom |
Her request for a loan of NRs. 5,000 was approved by PDC after she took part in Enterprise Management Training. She now sells seasonal vegetables and fruits in Chipledhunga area. She has also set up a small vegetable shop at her hut in the Tole, which her daughter looks after. She sometimes even buys oranges from as far as Damauli and sells wholesale in Pokhara. Her average sales per month is around NRs. 30,000 and on average makes a profit of about NRs. 4,500 - a significant sum considering the plight she was until recently in. She is very encouraged by the profits she makes and is now planning to upgrade from selling in doko to thela that would allow her to further increase her sales volume. She also sees an opportunity knocking when the roadside market at the Gairapatan moved to a new location managed by the private sector. She has requested to Programme to secure her a permanent place in this new retail vegetable and fruit market. For Parbati, gone are the days when she had to literally beg around to keep her children and herself from starvation. Not surprisingly today, when she is asked 'Ke chha Parvati halkhabar', she is full of praise for 'Sajhedari' as RUPP is popularly known in her Tole for motivating the Tole community in developing self managed enterprise from within the community itself.
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