Urmila Chaudhary is a happy soul, who until now lived for her family and kids. While now that her kids are adults and can look after themselves, Urmila has decided to start her second inning. A year back she took skill based training on weaving baskets (Dhakiya). She shares that, “If only I had learned it from my mom I didn’t have to prick my brains to learn the basics at this age.” She chose to learn this particular kind of basket weaving skill as this defines her culture. She wants to take forward the Dhakiya making tradition so that she contributes in preserving one of the Tharu cultures. Making Dhakiyas at her home since the training, Urmila is in the process of registering her business.

Disaster Experience 
Urmila shares that in Dang almost every year flood makes a huge nuisance for people. She has seen many people suffer and has lent a helping hand to them. Luckily, Urmila herself doesn't have any bitter experience to share about the disaster. As for her business she has just begun, even COVID didn’t have that much of an effect. However,  she has seen a lot of her friends' businesses getting affected by it, wherein  many have shut their stores as not being able to  pay back to their creditors. Therefore, Urmila definitely wants to be able to run a sustainable business. While looking to learn the techniques of running a resilient business, she came across the  opportunity to be a project beneficiary and  grabbed it with excitement. She is happy to have her products being promoted on the Udhyami Utthan (UU) Online Shop at Thulo.Com along with getting training on ‘Building Resilient Businesses’.

“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
Urmila believes that a learning attitude gives you the power to be able to achieve your goals. She feels grateful to   have got a chance to learn how to manage a business in the event of a disaster. Urmila shared, “The most valuable session for me was Costing in Business under the training module ‘Business Development Management’ as this has helped me understand that I need to consider all the costs while setting the price of the products. I am happy that I learned this at the beginning of my business journey.” 

Digital Literacy Training was something Urmila attended for the first time. Initially for her, it was challenging to catch all the technical terminologies; however, she learnt about the minute  details to be prioritized while promoting products in the digital platform like requirement of quality photos, details of raw material used and market price, to name a few.  She never imagined that her products could be promoted online but through Udhyami Utthan  (UU)Online Shop her products are available for online shopping. This was interesting for her because e-commerce is still new in her community.  

The project provided its beneficiaries an opportunity to have interaction with banks and insurance companies. Urmila didn’t know such schemes were available and is looking to apply for one once her business gets registered. 

Urmila exclaimed that, “Overall project experience of training and e-commerce  was a great learning experience and has given me extra determination to get my business registered and take it to the next level.”

Future Plan
Urmila’s first and foremost plan is to get her business registered for which she is on going all the required processes currently. She wishes to completely focus on her business and take her ancestral tradition ahead. She wants to promote Tharu culture and their creativity through her business. She would like to keep exploring the new avenue to grow her business, therefore would like to continue her association with Udhyami Utthan.

Urmila is a home based producer based in Tulsipur, Dang.
Visit her Online Shop at Thulo.com/uu
https://thulo.com/index.php?dispatch=companies.products&company_id=850