Saran Maya remembers the time when she was working in a carpet factory. She used to laboriously make carpets and was looking for a change. One day, her friend suggested that she join a yomari making training session along with her. Saran Maya shared that her husband supported her with household chores while she was taking the training. It's been seven years now that she has been making yomari and momos sold in Village Cafe by Sabah. She is extremely happy that she decided to consider her friend’s suggestion of learning yomari making which has currently helped her have a good income source.

Disaster Experience 
Saran Maya shared that the pandemic is the disaster that made many entrepreneurs like her have a difficult life. After getting training on making Yomari, she was doing well. Her yomaris were sold through the cafe and her earnings were good enough until the pandemic hit the world. The nationwide lockdown forced everyone to stay at home for their safety. Cafes were restricted to open as well. This led to Saran Maya losing her income-generating opportunities. Her financial contribution to her family played a great role in leading a better life. With the lockdown, she and her husband both could not earn much and it was difficult to pay the bills. Finally, when everything got better and the cafe also got permission to resume the operations, she was also back to business. But due to the lockdown, she had to bear a huge financial burden, and to get back, she had to look into opportunities for scaling up. Therefore, she feels happy to be associated with the Udhyami Utthan (UU) campaign 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
Saran Maya enjoyed the online learning sessions. It was their first-ever experience for her to use ZOOM. Learning to use ZOOM was challenging yet interesting for her. She felt that the training was intense and it was difficult to absorb everything from all the sessions but overall getting to learn from various experts on various topics was a wonderful opportunity. 

She liked the session on Business Continuity Management and Marketing. According to her, Business Continuity Management helped her understand how the disaster affects our lives and economy. She feels happy to learn about preparing the business for the future so that she is prepared in case any unprecedented events occur. Learning about different ways of marketing online was new and interesting for her.
  
Saran Maya shares “ Being associated with Thulo.Com has taught me different ways of marketing the products, I had never thought about promoting yomari online and selling it. Now, I have realized that it is possible to sell your products online if you promote them well and keep up with the quality.” 

Saran Maya shares that it was a great insight into the various schemes provided by banks and insurance companies.
 
Future Plan
Saran Maya wants to keep making yomaris with different fillings in the future as well. She wants to grow her business by learning new recipes and adding them to her product line to offer the customers. She wishes to continue her association with Thulo.Com and Udhyami Utthan Online Shop as she wants to keep up with her learnings in the future as well.

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