We Shanti (32 years), Mohan Singh (35 years), Pushpa  (33 years), and Bishna (23 years) are the resident of Shankarpur VDC, Darchula district. All villagers including us were involved in traditional agriculture for a long time. We did not have the know-how to increase the agricultural production even though the land is fertile. Thus, the produce was not sufficient and it led to constant food scarcity.

The growing size of our families and their needs and demands were big challenges to us. We did manual works for feeding our families. We had almost forgotten that our lives could be better. With such a low level of income and agricultural production, we were even unable to fulfil our basic needs.

Luckily, we got the opportunity to meet people from GNI and came to know that they were planning to provide ‘sewing and cutting training’ to a few youths. Only four of us from our VDC were motivated to take the training.

GNI organized a three-month ‘sewing and cutting training’. Food/accommodation expenses and training fee of all the trainees was covered by GNI. 15 youths from five projects VDCs of Darchula district took the training. GNI provided required materials and equipment for establishing the ‘Tailoring Center’. GNI also had a provision of providing 40% of the total cost in loan. After the training, four of us took a loan from an income generation group under GNI Community Development Project supervision.  We invested the remaining 60% ourselves.

That training provided us theoretical as well as practical knowledge in tailoring. Now, we are able to design ladies suit, gents shirt and pant, blouse, school dress, etc. As we were equipped with skills and sewing machines so we established ‘Gauri Aama Tailoring Center’ in our VDC. Now, we are very happy that our services cover whole Shankapur VDC including ward no. 2 of Malikarjun VDC. The tailoring center has helped us a lot to increase our incomes. In addition to this, we also got information on how to increase agricultural productivity. Now, we run the tailoring center as well as engage in agriculture. Besides, we provided three months training to four locals with a nominal fee of NRs. 3,000 (per person). We are very much satisfied with our work, and optimistic that this business and agriculture will improve our lives. We also believe that our children would be able to further their studies without any obstacle.

 We very much want to turn our tailoring center into a training institute and help others by sharing the knowledge and skills that we have acquired. We will also keep on working to extend our business. We heartily thank GNI for motivating and providing such a wonderful opportunity to us. Finally, we would like to request GNI to provide us new opportunities to enhance our capacity.