Rabita makes varieties of bags and masks. She used to knit and has experience in knitting for more than 15 years. She wanted to try something new. Rabita had a very limited stitching skill set and therefore she was very excited when she got the opportunity to attend the training on tailoring. It was just before the pandemic hit the world that Rabita got the skill development training on making bags and masks. She enjoys doing it as things help her to be creative and bring out varieties of products to serve the customers.

Disaster Experience 
As mentioned earlier Rabita had just started her tailoring career when the pandemic hit the world. She had already invested in raw materials and taken a few orders. When the lockdown happened she decided to finish the orders with the raw materials that were available to her. After that, she had no orders and could not even look for new ones as everyone was focusing on safety. Slowly the situation started to get better and that is when she again started making masks which were in demand at the time. Now that everything's getting back to normal she has opened a store and is smoothly running her tailoring business. 

She was excited to learn about the Udhyami Utthan Campaign and is happy to be associated with UU and 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
Rabita enjoyed the experience of learning online using ZOOM. She mentioned the training on Business Continuity Management where she learned about how disaster affects our lives and how it is essential to be prepared personally as well as have a better plan for the business. 

She mentioned that “ I could relate to the session on costing as being a home-based producer one always leaves out various costs associated with creating a product. The session has provided us much-needed knowledge on putting the right price to the product to run a sustainable business.”

She felt that if she had taken training on e-commerce and had gotten the chance to connect to Thulo.Com before the pandemic then things could have been better, she could have learned to market through social media as well which could have created demand. She added that when the situation got better she would have had better market reach. Nevertheless, now that she has learned the basics she will try at least to be visible on social media.

Rabita shared that she was more interested in learning about insurance schemes. She feels that to manage the risk one needs to get the insurance - personal as well as for business.
 
Future Plan
Rabita has plans to invest more in the business so that she can supply to the larger market. She also wishes to keep up with the new trend and come up with new designs. She wishes to continue her association with Thulo.Com so that she will be able to tap the larger market and with Udhyami Utthan to keep up with her learnings in the future.

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