Trail Blazers - IFAD

She might be just nineteen years old but has the most remarkable business
sense! Meet Aasha Bai Komal – a young mother of two and an innovative
woman entrepreneur in the making. She has completed Class V and belongs
to the Gond tribe from Chaurai village. Married off to Komal Singh Paraste
when she was barely a teenager, Aasha came to live in her husband’s house in
Chandwahi village.
Komal Singh worked as a construction labourer in the capital city of Bhopal
and sometimes in Jabalpur a well. He went wherever work was available and
visited home twice a year. Her husband’s family owns less than an acre of land
that produces enough crops for their own consumption. “We have only two crop
seasons because of insufficient water and unpredictable rains,” laments Komal,
“and so we cannot depend on it for the entire year.” The family have sowed wheat
this time but are not hoping to have a good crop. “That is why both of us brothers
Komal Singh Paraste is Aasha’s husband, and he is busy preparing namkeen (spicy snack) for the
customers.
(Komal’s brother has migrated to Bhopal) have to go in search of work,” Komal
continues to explain, “and so we hardly spend time with our families.”
But this gloomy situation soon transformed into a more optimistic and more contented
one for the Paraste Family. Aasha had joined the Tejaswini Narmada SHG in her village!
“It’s been two years now and I’ve never been happier,” Aasha blushes, “Even my in-laws
hold me in high esteem and respect my ideas!” One of the nine SHGs in Chandwahi
village, Tejaswini Narmada SHG has 16 members mostly from the Schedule Tribe (ST)
community. Monthly meetings had helped raise awareness on social problems faced
by the villagers and women in particular. “Migration of male members in the families for
want of better living conditions was seen as the most prominent issue in Chandwahi
village,” confirms the Community Mobilizer from Dronacharya Sikshan Sastha, the
FNGO working in the village.
The Tejaswini Rural Women’s Empowerment Programme in Madhya Pradesh has
been working in Dindori District concentrating on giving women a space to take
on development on their own terms for more than two years. From time to time,
the programme offered the SHG group members capacity building, livelihood
enhancement through development training with the aim to establish job skills, and
thereby achieve the need for villagers to remain in their villages. Aasha Bai is a good
example that the programme is successful and that it has benefited the community.
She was the first in her SHG to borrow via the internal lending system and also the
first to start a small yet substantial business. Today, Aasha is a proud owner of a roadside
eatery!
“I was very motivated by the meetings and wanted to start something on my
own,” Aasha begins to tell her story, “that’s how I first built a small hut-kind-ofplace
by the road at the entrance of the village.” She sold tea, biscuits and some
knick-knacks, and paan-beeda (a beetle-leaf-nut preparation) in the beginning,
and earned between INR 50 (USD 1) and 100 (USD 2) every day. Very happy
with the small amounts of additional money earned, Aasha discussed with her
husband and in-laws the possibility of starting a little larger shop. “The whole
family would work in the fields throughout the day and the men of the house
worked far away in another city to bring money home,” she recalls, “I felt that
I should do something to improve all our lives and that’s when I felt we should
expand our business.” Aasha’s father owns a hotel in Chaurai village and she had
observed how he ran his business, how he keeps accounts, etc. She decided
to give a concrete shape to her observations and borrowed INR 2,500 (USD 56)
from her SHG. She added some money she had saved with the loan amount
and started her own shop. “Everything you need you will find in my shop!” she
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