Prameela was leading the life of a typical homemaker before she encountered the Buzz intervention. Her husband earned a limited income from his petty shop selling only candies. Their family didn’t have any other source of income. But life started changing for her when she attended the Self Shakti program in October 2022, which was organized in her village.
Initially, she agreed to become a Gelathi only because no other women came forward. It took some persuasion from the Gelathi Facilitator to get her to attend the Spoorthi sessions. Her reluctance to learn new things was evident, but curiosity got the better of her, and she attended the first Spoorthi session. By the time she completed all four Spoorthi sessions in Feb 2022, she was a completely new person.
Prameela now wanted to transform her life and inspire other women with her change. She wanted to start working and earning money. Prameela began with her husband’s shop. She discussed it with her husband and decided that they will improve the shop. She invested Rs. 10,000 to sell more items - like toothpaste, soaps, sweet items, pencils, pens, and more. This expansion doubled their monthly income! While they were earning Rs. 4,000 every month earlier, now with the new items added, they earn Rs. 8,000. Prameela then bought two cows and started selling milk. That started bringing an additional income of Rs. 10,000 every month.
Now that she was involved in the shop, Prameela suggested her husband could do some other job and earn more money. He instantly agreed and Prameela used her savings of Rs. 2,20,000 to purchase a tempo van for him. With this van, he started selling onions in surrounding villages. This alone brought the family an income of Rs. 15,000 monthly.
From a meager income of Rs. 4,000, the family’s collective income of Rs. 35,000 every month. Don’t we have some superwomen in our villages?
Prameela didn’t stop the change with just her family. She is, in many ways, a local influencer. She motivated many women to form the Self-Help Groups and inspired them to save the money. Prameela is also involved in community initiatives and solves problems for her village. One of her successful pursuits was to get a road constructed in her village. She mobilized women from the village and led a change motion with the Panchayat. They then took up this long pending initiative on priority and the construction is now complete. All these changes because a woman like Prameela realized her inner strength!