Neha proudly calls herself a farmer. She is into agriculture and loves growing organic produce. She not only sells her products but also procures local spices, package them well, and offers them to her customers. While she has been farming for a long time, she has been running a store for three years now. She also sells various products through farmers’ markets. She likes to support fellow women agri- entrepreneurs to enhance the agriculture sector and promote organic products for better health.

Disaster Experience 
In the year 2015, Neha was happy to be a mom, her son was just born and she was in her postpartum period when a massive earthquake hit the country. She carried her newborn and rushed to the safe location. Her house was damaged and it was not in a livable condition. For a year she lived in a temporary shelter while a new house was being built. She recalls it was dreadful to experience that. On a positive note, her son has grown up well and she is focusing on her business as well. Suddenly again, the world was doomed by the pandemic. Due to restrictions on opening hours of stores, the sales were limited but thankfully her products were still in demand being fresh organic local products. Still, due to the lockdown, the businesses did get affected as people were scared for their health and safety which restricted them to go outside and buy products daily. She sometimes sold her products through farmer’s markets which generated reasonable income and during the pandemic it was not possible to continue. This also affected her business. While she was looking to learn new skills and expand her business she was excited to be part of the  Udhyami Utthan Campaign and is happy to be associated with Thulo.Com. 

“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
Neha feels that a business works well only when one promotes it better. She believes in the strength of marketing, so she could relate to all the topics covered in the business development management module. 
She also shared that learning about eCommerce and ways of marketing her products online was extremely knowledgeable. She mentioned that “After the training, I have realized that when we plan to sell the products online we have to be very conscious of the packaging and proper labeling of the products. It is our responsibility to provide the better quality products with authentic information about our products to our customers”. 
In current times, promoting business online is important. One post on social media can attract the attention of many people. Through digital literacy training, Neha has learned different ways of promotion in social media.

The overall training was very insightful and a mindfulness session was added to it. She has learned a lot and looks forward to a similar session in the future as well.
 
Future Plan
Neha has plans to invest in her agribusiness. She wants to promote the organic products which are produced locally. She wants to see the agribusiness sector grow on a large scale. She also wishes to sell her products to various cafes so that she can capture a bigger market. She wishes to continue her association with Thulo.Com and with Udhyami Utthan to keep up with her learnings in the future.

Neha is a home-based producer.
Visit her Online Shop at Thulo.com/uu