Nasira khatoon is 31 years old but looks twice older. She lives with her husband and five small children in the village of Siswa Kataiya-3 in Mahottari of Central Tarai. Coming from an utterly poor Muslim community, most of her time was spent in fetching twigs and dry leaves for cooking or finding menial work to stave off hunger.
In the absence of any self-development opportunities her morale was low. The mother of five children, all below the age of 10 was looking for ways to do something that would help her out of poverty but did not know how. Covering under the saree veil, she was confined to her household chores and isolated from the outside world. Representation or participation in any village level decision making process was not easy.
That all changed after she joined her community group called Nuri Shanti Samuha formed by UNDP's Livelihood Recovery for Peace Project (LRP) last year. All 34 members of our group come from vulnerable, excluded and economically deprived (VEED) households. The project decided to support her community group to start some income generating activities in order to help them improve their livelihood assets as a means to establishing community peace.
"I could not believe that our group was receiving the grant but it was true. We received 6000 rupees from LRP Project in the first installment to start our business. I decided to start the business of cosmetic items to improve my family's livelihood." said Nasira.
Today, she has become a successful enterpreneur. Nasira has started earning 200 to 300 rupees a day, vendoring cosmetic item. Nasira's joy knows no bound. The window of opportunity provided by the project has brought home Nasira's husband from India to help her expand the business and improve their livelihood. Today both of them are doing the same business. Drawing upon an interesting analogy of change in her life Nasira said, "The business of fetching twigs and dry leaves has now become like fetching home coins and banknotes after selling the cosmetics items. I and my husband compete who will bring home more money as we do the count every evening."
Listening to the story of Nasira makes it evident how much of self-confidence and positivism has grown in her for improved livelihood with the support of UNDP/LRP. Today she is sending all her four children to school, against her own decision earlier to keep one of the daughters at home to look after the smallest daughter.
One of the favourite topics for Nasira and her friends during their weekly meeting is how much of profit they made over the week. Increased opportunity for livelihood has raised their income but what is more important is to see her morale and confidence enhanced. "I am going to send all my five daughters to school so that they will not face the problem of counting money or giving back the return as I struggle everyday," says her.
