Sharmila Lama, 39 lives in Manikhel, Mahankal Rural Municipality, which lies in Southern Lalitpur. She lives with her daughter, now 18 years old, who is her only child. She lost both her parents and her two brothers in a devastating landslide when she was just 11. She moved to Lalitpur after getting married. Her husband left for foreign employment soon after her marriage, when her daughter was just six months old. Tragically, her husband went missing just three months after leaving for Malaysia and she never heard back from him. All she was left with was a huge loan taken for her husband, and an infant to feed and take care of. All this with no income was indeed unimaginably challenging for Sharmila. Sharmila started to work as a housemaid in Kathmandu which did not provide her with enough money to look after herself and her daughter. Then she decided to move to Kuwait for employment, leaving her young daughter with her relatives. “Leaving my daughter back in Nepal was the hardest decision of my life, but I had no choice!”, says Sharmila. She further adds, “On top of that, life in Kuwait was not easy at all. The work was extremely difficult, and I could not save enough money, despite the hardship. After six years in Kuwait, I realized that it is better to do something for a living in my own country. I also realized that it is better to become a merchant than serving other merchants abroad”. She returned from Kuwait, determined to do something on her own, but things were not so easy. She started small-scale vegetable farming but that was not at all enough to handle her family expenses.  She struggled for years just to live hand-to-mouth until one day back in 2017, a field staff of FWEAN, FCA’s implementing partner NGO, visited her and informed about the ongoing FCA project that supports women like Sharmila to establish their businesses. She showed interest and chose to start a bamboo handicraft business. At first, she received 28-day “Start and Improve Your Business” training for bamboo handicraft production. Soon after completion of the training, she started making bamboo products like baskets and cup holders from her newly gained skill. Later, she also received a 22-day refresher training to further enhance her skills.

The project staff facilitated for her to become a member of a FCA established and supported women’s Cooperative from which she could access a loan of Rs 200,000 for her initial investment to buy raw materials and tools. The support from FCA was not just limited to this. Like thousands of other women in Nepal, FCA linked Sharmila to the market and buyers from different places. This was done by selling her products from a product outlet in Chapagaun, Lalitpur, established and run with FCA’s support. She has also sold her products and found long-term buyers in business expos organized by FCA’s partner FWEAN. These expos are organized each year at local as well as national levels. Her products were also sold in a virtual expo conducted online during the pandemic. Her products can also be bought from winbiz.com.np, an online business portal run by FWEAN. 

Sharmila makes 19 different types of products now, which include food baskets, cloth racks, laundry baskets and so on. After fully paying back her loan, she took another loan of Rs 700,000 which she is paying back as monthly installments without any problems. Her products are in high demand now, especially after she was linked with new regular buyers in the trade expo. Now she plans to train and hire some women to work for her, as it is now getting difficult to meet demands from her buyers. As a backup support, Sharmila also started to do some small-scale commercial farming of asparagus and tomato; she has received commercial farming training and tomato tunnel support from FCA’s ongoing project.  Sharmila’s livelihood has drastically improved in the past years. She was able to construct her own house in 2021; her daughter Rupa is studying bachelor’s degree in Computer Science in Chapagaun and is working part-time as a salesperson in the product outlet established with FCA’s support. She receives a monthly stipend of Rs 10,000 which she utilizes as her pocket money.  Sharmila told FCA staff members during her household visit, “I cannot even explain how much my life has changed in the past few years. FCA, Women’s bank of Finland and FWEAN are like my mothers, who gave me a new life and a reason to live. I can never thank you enough. Who does all these things? I mean, right from giving training, providing an opportunity to take loans, supporting for starting a business, making connections to the market. If possible, please pass my sincere thanks to everyone who is behind providing support to women like me”. FCA has been working in Southern Lalitpur since 2009. The projects are funded by Women’s Bank of Finland and implemented by NGO partners SOLVE Nepal and FWEAN. SOLVE does all the work related to cooperatives and women’s social empowerment, while FWEAN supports women for entrepreneurship development and marketing. There are 12 women-led and owned cooperatives running in Lalitpur with FCA’s support (29 in Nepal). The support includes right from the establishment, building construction, operational and financial capacity building, capacity building of executive members, support in procuring essential assets, and providing grants for various initiatives of women, for instance, Local Women Economic Development (LWED) project for women’s skill enhancement and establishment of their own enterprise. There are currently over 4,500 women directly affiliated with FCA supported cooperatives in Lalitpur who are making regular savings and accessing loans for doing their own business. FCA has also been supporting social empowerment of women and facilitating their participation in development processes. 19 women who are members of FCA-supported cooperatives are recently elected and now serving as municipal and ward level representatives in Lalitpur.