When we talk about women empowerment what could be the better example than the following inspiring story of a simple and illiterate lady from a small and backward village of Bihar whose courage and commitment surprised everyone in the village.
Munni Devi is a passionate entrepreneur who single-handedly runs an Agarbatti (Incense stick) business in a small village of Bodhgaya block of Bihar. Though she is an uneducated and untrained in this business, but her passion and zeal to run a business is rarely to be seen among any other women. As her husband was not able to provide the required financial support to their small family, so she always wanted to earn something from her own to support the family.
She believes that though she is uneducated and has never gone to school, she can learn a new skill very quickly. She never thought that she could also become an entrepreneur without investing a huge amount of money. Once while visiting her relative’s house, she had seen an incense stick making machine and learned how to prepare make them within a day. From that day onwards, she had a dream to start her own business of making Agarbatti.
Her dream turns into reality when she met Sanoj Kumar who is CRP-EP (Community Resource Person of Entrepreneurship Promotion) under SVEP project during his visit to entrepreneurship orientation meeting in her SHG. Sanoj helps her to get a clear understanding of the viability of the business and sources of funds for the starting the business.
At the same time, she has been offered to get the second-hand machine from the relative house at the cost of Rs 1 Lakh which helped her in reducing the project cost. Jeevika’s CLF (Cluster level federation) approved to offer Rs 1 Lakh to her to start the business. Investing remaining amount of money from her savings she finally managed to start her business at home.
Currently, she is producing Agarbatti by procuring the necessary raw materials from the nearby market and selling the product to the trader of the nearby market. She believes that her journey has just begun, and she should expand her business from production to marketing under her own brand name. Now, she is seeking support from SVEP to get more funds to invest in the business. She is always grateful to the CRP-EP Sanoj Kumar and people of her SHG and Cluster who supported her to start this.
The saying, “there is no limit to what women can accomplish” perfectly fits for this lady because of her commitment and dedication to reach her goal.