Gouravva: A woman of strength
During my visit to Biradi village in Karnataka, I got to meet with a lot of Milaap borrowers and talk to them about their microenterprises. Gouravva was one of them. 6 months ago, Gouravva took a Milaap loan of Rs. 15,000 to expand her goat rearing business. With the loan amount, she was able to buy 1 big and 2 small goats. More than half of Gouravva’s day is spent toiling in fields working as a daily wage earner. Even as I asked her various questions, she was in a hurry to go to work. Same is the case with almost all the other women in her village. “Working in fields, we are able to earn only Rs. 150 in a day. All that money is spent in household expenses. And sometimes when there is no work, we are not even able to earn that much,” she explained. Running these small scale businesses such as goat rearing or buffalo husbandry provides Gouravva and other women in her village with an additional source of income, and allows them to save for a rainy day. Also Gouravva is able to get all the fodder for her goats from the farms free of coast, so apart from initial investment, there are no additional expenses in this business.
After her husband’s death, Gouravva became the sole breadwinner for her family. For an uneducated woman with limited employable skills, it might have seemed like an impossible scenario, but Gauravva was not deterred. It was then that she first thought of starting her goat rearing business. Lack of funds may have become a major hurdle if not for the microfinance loans. But proper funding when it was most needed allowed Gouravva to kick start her business. Ever since then she has not looked back, and this recent loan allowed her to expand her business. Her son is studying in 12th standard now, and Gouravva wants him to continue with his studies.
After returning from Biradi, when I reflected upon my meeting with Gouravva, it seemed to me like Gouravva was the personification of strength and determination. I was even happier to know that a little help from Milaap lenders was able to help such a woman in her endeavors.
