Mina’s life could have taken a different turn had she not lost her husband within two years of marriage. Life is very difficult for a single mother at a young age with no financial independence. Mina has worked very hard to provide a good life for her only son. She knew to stitch and decided to start her tailoring store. Mina shares that she chose tailoring as a business because according to her this is a safe business as people will always require a tailor to make their clothes; therefore, she will never be out of business. Additionally, Mina feels secure as she doesn’t have to worry about setting up a store; she can make dresses and clothes at home as well. Mina has been in the tailoring business for 14 years now.

Disaster Experience 
As a single mother at a very young age, Mina has been through a lot of struggles. During the massive earthquake in 2015, Mina to lose her house. With her only child, she had to live in a temporary shelter. One cannot even imagine how difficult it could have been for her to live in a tent alone with a small kid. Fearing her safety, she quickly moved to a safe rental room after living a month in a temporary shelter. Mina worked very hard to provide basics for her kid. One disaster had already taken her home and she was still struggling with finances when the 2020 pandemic came over.  People were scared to come outside of the house and her business in that situation was definitely on hold. Very few people who needed clothes for their kids gave her some work. With the spread of COVID getting minimal her work is also slowly getting business.  Mina looking for new opportunities got associated with Udhyami Utthan Campaign.

 “Fostering Resilience of Women-Led Businesses (including home-based women producers) and Consumers” is a project being implemented by Thulo.Com and Enterprise for Management, Economic Reform, and Gender Equality (EMERGE). The project is supported by United States Agency for International Development (USAID)’s Tayar Nepal - Improved Disaster Risk Management Project and also contributes to Udhyami Utthan (UU - https://udhyamiutthan.com/about-us/ ), an entrepreneurship empowerment initiative.

Experience as a Project Beneficiary
Mina was happy to learn online via ZOOM. According to her, it was a good opportunity to utilize the time when mostly at home. Getting to learn about managing the disaster risk and digitizing the business was a great learning experience for her.
She shared, “People nowadays spend their time too much online. They look for everything online, even my customers come with a dress design that they had seen in some online shop and ask me to make a similar one. With digital literacy training, I have some idea on how to market or promote my products online and the techniques of promoting in social media.” She feels that she is yet to learn a lot about getting digitized as it is difficult for her to grasp all the technicalities. 
According to Mina, it was difficult to understand every session and grasp all the knowledge due to her limited education. Therefore, feels she needs to have refresher training as well. 

Mina mentioned “My favorite topic during the overall training session was the costing. This has opened my eyes to how I need to price my products. I will now consider all the costs associated when I make beautiful clothes for my customers.”

She plans to invest more and expand her business in a couple of years. Therefore, having first-hand knowledge of banking and insurance schemes was a great experience. She shares that she will be following the different schemes offered by banks in the coming days so that whenever she plans to apply for a loan she will choose wisely.

Future Plan
Mina plans to expand her business in the future. She is happy that through this project she has learned about various management techniques to run a resilient business even in a time of disaster. She wishes to continue her association with Udhyami Utthan and Thulo.Com even after completion of the project as she wants to keep up with her learning in the future as well.

Mina is a home-based producer based in Byasi, Bhaktapur.
Visit her Online Shop at Thulo.com/uu