28 Dec Rising above the ashes
A saccharine smile on her face and a zeal in her eyes, she is Binda B.K., a Danfe beneficiary of the year 2016. She has come a long way from being a beneficiary, to becoming a local entrepreneur and at current working in collaboration with Danfe Works.
Her story is not very enchanting and she perhaps had a tough ride but the important thing is that she has excelled and how? With flying colors and risen up above the agonies of the earthquake. With a great interest in learning the dexterity of tailoring at her heart, she came to know about the project Danfe and arrived for the need assessment. It was a contest for her to be chosen because her actual age was morphed and she exceeded the age limit to be eligible to become a beneficiary of the project Danfe.
Nevertheless, she didn’t lose hope and elucidated SAATH team that she had been pursued to go abroad, Saudi Arabia to be precise, to earn money for which her age was raised in her citizenship by her guardian. Daughter of a single parent, Binda had lost her father very early and was worried about the situation of her family, her younger brothers, and sisters who had to go to school to pursue their education, her mother who has several health issues that were only amplified by the earthquake of April 2015. She craved to upkeep her family but as the firstborn child of the family, she didn’t get the opportunity to achieve formal education and hence was devoid of skills and proficiencies.
She explicates, while she in Kathmandu for the training, it was an arduous transition for her in the beginning but eventually she gained pace, started enjoying the training and developed her persona and individuality through various life skills-based components incorporated within the project for the all-inclusive development of the girls.
However, this is not the blissful windup to her story. After the completion of the training, she went back to her community, started working for a local tailor shop where she felt that she was being exploited because her job was only constrained to tailoring. The proprietor of the shop wouldn’t let her acquire the cutting skills. Conversely, without feeling aggravated or disheartened, she assembled the audacity to use her business management and entrepreneurial skills that she had learned during the training phase under the project Danfe, collaborated with another beneficiary and started off her own tailoring shop. And as she rightly feels, there has been no looking back since then.
Her outstanding expedition from being a girl in a vulnerable state to becoming a local entrepreneur has not just had economic but also a colossal social impact. Now, her brothers and family support her in her endeavor and don’t want her to go abroad in search of work and money.
Now, Binda is also working for production of Danfe Works and has been able to add up to her income. Her experience and voyage have been a source of inspiration for many other young girls. As she is a resilient believer of learning by sharing, she wants to share her knowledge that she acquired from Danfe to other young girls in her community to help them gain a better perspective in life in order to become self-reliant and pursue a dignified work for income.
Compiled by Aaditi Khanal ( Project Coordinator of DANFE)